National Republican., 1882-12-12
ADJUSTMENTS.
MARGARET MATHER AT FoRD's.

If abundant and spontaneous applause may
be considered evidence in such a matter, the
audience at Ford's last evening was amply
pleased with the Interpretation which Mar
garet Mather gave to the character of Juliet
Moreover being pleased, it is moderately safe
to assume that large part of the audience
were also agreeably surprised, for so many
recent candidates for favor in this direction
have proven iasipid failures that predis-
position against newcomers has very natur-
ally grown up. This predisposition is so
strong, and withal so well intrenched in rea-
son and fortified by experience, that nothing
less than superlative power is sufficient to
overcome it.
Therefore, to say that her audience was
pleased, is to admit Miss Mather's possession
of superlative power.
1t is well to consider the temper and iudg-
ment of a public in weighing the merit of
any performance of Juliet, because no two
persons who closely study the character itself
are like to arrive at the same notion of it ;
and most of those to whom is delegated the
business of pronouncing publicly upon theatric
matters have preconceivcd opinions as to
how Juliet should be pictured; or
have set up in the catalogue of
their ideals some view of her derived from
experience or tradition. Thus, the giving out
of any one person, who cOnsults only his own
mind in the matter, is like to have but little
value; and safer way of determining what
q Juliet is worth is to take the general verdict
into account. The character, incarnating as it
does universal human passion, will find a
response in any body of people, according as
it may be well played or poorly-with true
and strong and natural touch, or weak and
artificial
The whole range of Shaksperean characters
| offers none other more commonly tried nor
less often tried successfully. In most cases
by the time an actress has learned enough of
her art to play it well, she has grown too old
to look it; and very few have ever been
found who have at once possessed the youth
the skill and the varied power of expression
necessary to an even partially successful
attempt. 1t offers at once the most
tempting and the sharpest test to which
young actress can subject herself, Miss
Mather endureS it more than well. Young
handsome, with most engaging face and a
figure that satisfies every requirement of
grace in all its lines and movements, she
might pass question in most characters with
out the aid of any special gifts either of
insight or expression, But these gifts
she has as well; and her Juliet is the best of
this day. Not that it is perfect. Few dra-
matte efforts ever have or ever will be that
Her reading, while distinct and ceanly-cut
! Is sometimes hard and sometimes stilted and
after realisns las they are called), which are
trivial, and divert attention from the true
dlilt and current of the play. Such de-
| parture is the clutching up and down at the
| ivy, in the balcony scene; and other touches
of like unftness might be mentioned, We're
they strong enough to make them worth a
mention. But in all its main proportions, in
| fire and vigOr of treatment, and in plen-
| tiful adOrnment of prettiness, it is work
TO dwell upon with pleasure. Every essen
| tial from the girlish sweetness of the first act
| to the whirlwind fourth is met and supplied
with a certainty and feeling of spontGniety
so true and so full that no thought of the
method of it comes to the spectator until all
is done. The art that conceals its artifice,
and impresses by its spirit is a very honest
and exalted art, and'to this art Miss Mather
| has well nigh attained.
She directs her efforts less toward depict
| ing the molten sensuOusness of Juliet than
toward developing its finer tragic phases,
! Even through the earliest scenes there runs
some monition of the gloom that is to come.
Her mastertone is touched in the balcony
lscene-"Art thou not Romeo, and Mon