Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1885-02-16
EDWIN BOOTH.
The Plays to be Presented at CarlI's
Opera House Tonight.

The Plays to be Presented at CarlI,s
Opera House Tonight.
OF the plays and playwrights Of France we
sometimes hear questions asked as to their
purport and merit. Should any who intend
to listen to Mr.. Booth this evening be asking
such questions we will seek to shed some light
will be tRuy Bias, "by Victor Hugo. It was
first presented at the Theatre de la Renais-
sance now the italian Opera, at Paris, forty
seven years ago. Five years had interviewed
since he had written his greatest drama Gle
Roi s'amuse,' during which time he had COM
posed several operas without much success,
and it was with joy that his friends saw all
his powers unframed in his work 'tRuy
Bias which critics are pleased to call his
evening his wife in her life of her husband
says: Notwithstanding that the theatre was
not completed on the first night, and that it
was exceedingly cold, the piece success
full. A fact worthy of note was that the sue
cess this time came mostly from the public"
l. e. not from personal friends. Victor Hugo
was at that time thirtysix years old, in the
full vigor of manhood, with all his powers of
portraying extreme feelings undiminished.
Speaking of him Mr.. A. G. Swinburne, an
English poet and critic, says che cannot
mention Mr.. Hugo's name without dithyram-
bic rhapsodies.s
.sRuy Bias" is a valet to Don Salluste de
Bazan, who has fallen from favor with the
Queen, and who him as his instrument
to avenge himself upon her. Ruy Bias is
duped into impersonating Don Caesar de
Bazan, Salluste's long lost cousin, and robed
as courtier he is presented at court and to
the Queen. He becomes her prime minister,
her favorite at the court. She becomes
warmly interested in him. The valet has
succeeded in winning the love he sought of
his Queen, but he finds it impossible to frus-
trate his masters purposes. He is placed
with the Queen in a position from which
there is but one way to escape honorably He
comprehends it. Loving the Queen, know
ing Salluste's dark plans and his own as
sumed character, he discloses himself to her,
kills his master and takes his own life. We are
told that it is taken from the same story
which Bulwer used in his ''Lady of Lyons ~
but with very different sequel. The happy
end of the one and the tragic denouement of
the other render them in nothing alike.
We have been speaking of the play as writ
ten in the French; it is an English adapta
ton which will be given tonight. Yet we
are assured that in its translation into our
tongue it has lost none of it's original fire nor
force. The trenchant lines as they fell from
the passionate lips of the hero at Paris burn
and sting and move as powerful in English.
It may add interest to the play that
follows it to know that the idea
suggested to it's authors by Ruy Bias.
The comedy for the evening is ''Don Caesar
de Bazan." In an old volume of plays that
lie before me whose pages are dog-eared and
on whose leaves ale pen marks of another
generation of critics, the title page tells us
that this play written by Dumanois and
Dennery in 1914 and adapted from the
French by A. Breckert and Lemon, and in
bold hand is written, FFirst performed at
Princess Theater, London, on Tuesday,
October Sth, 1874" 1t adds not little to
our interest in looking over the list of char
aeters on the presentation night to discover
the names of those who have created great
roles and whose names are familiar to Lon
character whose name it bears and who gives
the play its comical aspect. Caesar
is an easygoing Spaniard, (the scene
is laid in Madrid), who like most
of his countrymen has wasted his
fortune, and is pursued by his creditors. He
has his title of nobility and life left, the lat
ter of which he manages to have all but
taken from him forfeit for breaking the
royal edict in taking life during Carnival
week." and his title of nobility he is cajoled
into bestowing upon gypsy maiden. His
careless Indifference regards his fate and
make contrast which, to say the least, is
very winning and also comically startling.
The play consists of plots and counter plots
of which he is the main spring around which
they turn. Don Caesar has killed an op-
pressor of Lazarillo and is cast into prison to
await death in two hours time. Lazarillo
attaches himself to his person as valet in
gratitude. The gypsy maiden whose beauty
has entrapped the king is Mariana, who is
ambitious to become a titled lady. While in
this mood she is met by Don Jose,
the Kings prime minister, who has noticed
that the King is deeply interested in her.
Don Jose is the gentleman villain of the
play, who becomes ultimately the victim of
his own plots. He discovers her ambition
and promises to crafty it by making her a
countess, to which purpose he visits Caesar
in prison and agrees to have him shot in
stead of executed and to allow him feast
with his executioners if he will wed lady
whom he proposes and ask no questions. as
to whom she is nor her face. This he
good-naturedly consents to and ten minutes
before his doom he is wedded-a feast, a
wedding, all in prison within two hours,
and ''only living unto DEATH But while he
is shot at he is not killed and returns to add
new humorous aspects to the play. Having
succeeded in marrying Mariana to title, thus
conccaling lowly position, he introduces the
King to her as her husband Don Caesar, and
hurries away to acquaint the Queen, hoping
to arouse her jealousy and profit by it. At
this instant Don Caesar reappears and kills
him-off the stage-returns and confronts
the King, acquaints him with all that has
happened and receives happy reward, his
wife and an appointment governor of a
province which he selects so far from Madrid
''that no creditors may find him there" We
may not give you its humorous aspects, they
abide not alone in words nor in action, for
there is also infinite jest in the manner, in
the circumstance. To picture it all in a few
lines we conceive to be impossible yet if we
suggest to you the outlines of the plot our OBJ
ject is accomplished. Nor do we seek in any
wise to foreshadow the delineations which
the character may receive. We leave that to
those who love.
The cast is as follows: