The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1885-01-27
THE COUNTESS ARCO.
The Fair Austrian Talks About
Art ard Things.

telligent lady, of medium height. and
about 80 years. Her face is not
beautiful, but it is lighted up with an
expression of intellectual force and
vivacity that well atones for physical
charms. Her eyes are very dark and
restless, and she has great mass of
glossy hair of kind of bronzed
brown color. She talks with tire
less animation, more French than
German, and a more pronounced &C
cents than can be noticed in her stage
reading. 1t is evident that in spite
of the really remarkable facility she
has shown for acquiring the English
tongue, she still labors under the dis
advantage of one who thinks in one
language and speaks in another. Her
observations are generally shrewd and
full of ideas, and it is only necessary
TO mention a topic to call forth flood
Of entertaining remarks.
81 never played Camille in my life
TIL I came to this country" she said
yesterday, "and I took hold of it with
great fear and trembling. So many
actresses have impersonated the part,
and so very we'll you know, and the
American public must have become SO
critical about it. And then people
always like the first performance of
anything the best. / love the part,
though. A good many people are
bitterly opposed to it because they
think it is so very immoral. and they
come to me and wonder why l play it.
Now it isn't immoral. When it is
properly played it is great moral
lesson. Of course it can be made low
and revolving, but it isn't necessary
to make it SO. My conception of
Camille is that she was naturally
noble and capable of pure and ten
der emotions. She was carried away
from her better self, no matter how.
Then she loves and that brings back
to her pure thoughts and desires. She
dies for love. No woman who could
make her sacrifice could have any
thing but a noble nature originally.
don't see how the terrible lesson of
her punishment and remorse can be
anything but good, and people who
think it is degrading must have
strange ideas of moral influences"
Chow do you like American audi
ences?"
81 have got used to them and like
them now, but at first they scared
me-so noisy and so demonstrative,
and so different from the cold and
silent audiences of Europe-all blase
and critical. The first time / heard
the people in the gallery shout and
whistle I nearly tainted. 1 thought
they were angry and would mob me.
But / notice the American audiences,
most of them, are just as quick to sp-
preciate good points in acting as any
audience in Europe. But why don't
you have better things to eat in your
hotels in this country. / go to 80
many places where they l-e-e-ver have
and what dc you call it, Pe-e-gs feet
!. what is that? and b-e-e-ans and pie.
Oh my! and then your country, par
ticularly here, is 90 cold-oh 80 awful
cold! / can't see anything but snow
and ice, and they tell me this is such
9 beautiful country when you can see
anything of it"
"And what do you think of the
promise of dramatic art In this
countryT
lit is good-it is bright, but you
do some things so crudely here. Why
do you submit to this what you call
starring business Think of one
just one-good actor going about with
q lot of incompetent and ignorant
people to play the other parts 2 Now
what you want is q good theater in
every considerable place, with stock
company, where young actors can be
trained and finished, and put an end
to this travelling about. But you have
good actors in America. There is
Edwin Booth, the greatest actor in
the world. What an actor he $50
finished, and polished, and refined.
We have good actors abroad-Barney
and Sontag-but We have no such
artist as Booth. He is the greatest
actor and Bernhardt is the greatest
actress | ever saw. But about dra-
matte art in America. You have
youth and energy and enterprise and
progress here, and when you get rid
of your barberous travelling system, /
think you will settle down and give
the fashioned to old Europe. That
will be strange sight, won't it.