The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-11-01
MUSIC AND DRAMA.
BA1RD's MINsrRRLs


Tonight Baird's Minstrels will appear at
City Hall. The advance sale of seats at Stock
bridges has been large but number of good
seats still remain. The Boston Globe said of
the troupe: "For bright, lively, wholesome
entertainment of mirth and music, commend
us to Baird's Minstrels. They more than fill
requirements. Manager I. W. Baird has all
ready Won an enviable reputation as caterer
to patrons of minstrelsy, and with the company
with which he began his fourth annual en-
gagement at the Windsor Theatre last even
ing, he is certain to add greatly to his fnan-
cial and professional record, by following the
simple rule, 1.-THE best, and enough of it.
To sum up, it is performance of
very high order of even excellence, keeping
the audience in good humor for nearly three
hours, and meritiDg nightly repetition OF the
crowded house OF last evening during its weeks
sojourD at the Windsor"
McsoRLEY's INITIATION.
"McSorley's Initiation" will be produced at
Portland Theatre Monday and Tuesday next,
and the sale of tickets will begin tomorrow.
The Providence Journal says Like all of Ed
Harrigans works, it is overlooking with fun.
The audience do not get through laughing
over some funny saying or situation, before
there is something else still more funny, and
thus it goes on for two and half hours, until
cverybody's sides fairly ache. The company,
which is under the management of Mr.. Mart
W. Hanley, is a very large, as well as very
good one. There are % people in all, the
principal ones being Messrs. James Kearney
j. FL. Ryan, James Fox, Max Arnold, Joseph
Hurley, John Williams and Miss Lydia Yea
mans. The songs were all well sung, and all
of them received one or more encores. One of
the features was the excellent music rendered
by the orchestra, under the leadership of Mr..
Geo. f. Braham, and especially the xylophone
playing by Master Eddie King"
WILLY REILLY.
Tomorrow evening Mr.. Dan Maguinnis will
make his bow here as star actor in the play
of "Willy Reilly" Willie Reilly is an Irish
peasant in love with Mary Moriarty. daughter
of the village inn-keeper, but the father of
course is preiudiced against him. Lord
Mountioy, on whose estate Willy lives, sells
his property to Mr.. Kenyon, who sets out on
foot to take charge of the estate. On the way
he is ambushed by robbers who having found
Willie Reilly on the road coming out to meet
McCarty, beguile him, as they suppose, to
join them in the crime, putting over his neck
a chain and watch taken from previous muir
defence OF Kenyon, kills one of the robbers and
MORALLY wounds the other. Kenyon and Will
lie become separated in some mysterious way.
When Willie returns to the village he is ap-
pretended, through his possession of the
watch, as party in the previous crime COM
mitted BY the robber, and when the villagers
come upon the dying robber in the woods, who
fully confesses his crime and exculpates Reilly
he is hidden away in order that Willie may be
convicted. But at the last moment the wound
cd rnhh hary &s.,sk-
drags himself in and by his dying words and
documentary evidence Willie is triumphantly
shown to be innocent and Moriarty bestows his
daughter upon him. The play deals effective
ly with the Irish question, though the denoue-
ment, which is simply happy change of land
lords, does not agree with the universal Irish
demand that the landlords must CO.
IRVING AND MISS TERRY.
In his criticism of Mr. Henry Irving in his
impersonation Of Charles the First, and OF the
first appearance in America of Miss Ellen
Terry, Mr.. William Winter says in the Tri-
bune: "Mr. Irving, as King Charles, reproduc-
es the Van Dyke face and figure presented on
the glowing canvas of that great painter at
Windsor and at Warwick. AS matter of
fact the unfortunate monarch grew very gray
and haggard toward the last and his hair and
beard were very long and were neglected, for
he suffered much; but the actor is wise who
comes not to near too fact. Mr. Irving repro
duces for us exactly that dark, melancholy
stately figure to which our Imagination has
been accustomed, and just SO we doubt not
King Charles appeared in his better days,
when walking in the sweet sunshine of an
English summer on the terrace of Hampton
Court. Mr.. Irving's acting in this part is
calmly vigorous with the weight Of personal
character, very vigorous, with the play of a
fine intellect, excellent for its even sustain
ment of royal dignity, richly complete in its
elaborate courtly manners and fraught with
sombre strangeness and tender feeling. The
part admits of no wild outburst of morbid
frenzy and Of no fantastic treatment. Royal
authority, moral elevation and domestic ten
derness are the chief elements to be presented,
and Mr.. Irving, with all his experience, could
aud Nc uiihcufty PRESSING Thorn. What
most impressed his auditors was his extraor-
binary physical fitness to the accepted ideal of
Charles Stuart, combined with the passionate
earnestness and personal magnetism that ena-
bic him to create Snd sustain perfect illusion.
This performance by Mr.. Irving is less strik-
ing than that of Matthias, less relative to the
imagination and passion, and therefore less in
dicatiye of the characteristic attributes of his
genius; but, undoubtedly, it is one Of the most
rounded and complete of his intellectual works
and to the student it is especially significant,
as indicative of the actors method, in apply
ing what is termed natural treatment to the
poetic drama. At the close of the third act he
aroused intense feeling, and was cheered with
tumult of vociferous applause.
The most surprising and absorbing perform
ance of the night was that of Miss Ellen Terry
who came forward as Queen Henrietta Maria,
making her first appearance in America. She
was welcomed with the heartiest enthusiasm,
and was called beforesthe curtain again and
again as the night wore on. Her dazzling
beauty as the Queen and her strange personal
fascination, in which voice of copious and
touching sweetness bears chief part, would
readily explain this result, but there is more
in it than fair visage. The Queen in this piece
has not been furnished with any great dra-
matte situation. She has to exhibit impetuosi-
ty and caprice. She has to express conjugal
tenderness, and to illustrate woman's fidelity
to the man whom she loves when that man is
in trouble and danger. She has to ask a boon
from tyrant and turn upon him in scorn and
noble pride when repulsed. The situations are
all conventional, and even hackneyed. What
shall be said of the personality that can make
them fresh and new? There are some men
who affect to understand women, but we be-
lieve those fortunate creatures do not write
dramatic criticism. Miss Terry, ii we appre-
bend Alright the drift of her acting is essen
TALLY spontaneous, absolutely unconventional
and positively individual, and will use all
characters in the drama as vehicles for the ex-
preston of her own. This in Queen Henrietta
Maria is very, great excellence. What it
might be in such part as Portia must be left
to conjecture. Miss Terry's acting has less
mind in 1t than that of Mr.. Irving, though not
deficient here, but it proceeds essentially from
the nervous system, which is in the soul. There
was indication that her special vein ia high
comedy, but she was all the woman in the des-
olate farewell scene that ends the piece, and
she melted every heart with her distress even
as she had charmed every eye with her uncom-
mon loneliness
NOTES.
Judge O'Gorman in New York yesterday
denied an application made by Col. JamessH.
Mapleton for an injunction to restrain Madam
Emelia Lablache from singing with Henry e.
Abbey's company at the Metropolitan Opera
house.
Howard Gould's Team Not Stolen.
The report of the theft of Howard Gould's
team appears to have arisen from misconcep-