Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1886-11-22
GREEK PLAY AND THE OPERA.
Nym Crinkle aud the Plays and
Players.

IlhySfb.
NEW YORK, NOV. 20.-A kind of
sub-social excitement exists i'll the
first circles over the Greek play
which is to be done at the Academy of
Music. You would think, naturally
enough, that the interest in q dead drama
spoken in dead language must centre
in the philologists, the college students,
the pedagOgues and the lew casslolsts.
Nonsense, the interest centres in the fash
ionable noodles, in the gided youth VINO
cannot tell heXaIaeter from u dried her
ring, whose only trOpes are heliOtrOpes;
who affect Greek not because 1t ID classic,
but because 1t is ''the cheese" the latest
tum-tum caper of a set VINO want TO
patrOnize the prehensible. Gut Of
the swell crowd that Will assem-
bic In the morning at the
Academy to show how severe Is fashion
able good taste, there will be a few
ancients in stiff cravats who will know
what 1t is all about. The rest of them will
be the charming hyDOcrites OF the 4O'clOck
teas who wish to show their superiority
TO the common Tabble by their endur-
ance.
It's the talk of the inner circle OF intel
lectual bellies, from Murray Hill to
0ramercy-that is TO say, they are talk-
iHR HDOub WIN VIII D6 LutTb allu now bne
Will be dressed, and already the lists have
gone out to the papers setting forth the
distinguished patrons who intend TO oc-
cupy boxes aud patronize with their pres
ence tie archaic thing that they don't
pretend to understand.
suppose that one reason why fashion
takes SO priggisbly TO the dead my tbs of
Wagner and to the deader Greek heroes
is because there Ia no contemporaneous
T..
pOraneous human thing is slightly vulgar.
You know fashion that will turn up its
nose at Walt Whitman because he ls
trough" will simper delectably over the
erotic memorials of POmpeIi, aud while it
freezes with disdain the modern French
drama will mug with delight the drama of
the Restoration and quote JuYenal In
brazen enjoyment.
The affected indifference OF the dainty
clashes to tie human thing is strangely
significant at this time, when the voice,
ominous and deep, OF over 10000 con tenn
poraneous human things has been heard
through the ballot box muttering like one
of these seismic waves that make princi-
palites tFembe.
saw Patti for few moments on Tues
day. | could not help admiring the
charming little woman, when she said,
with that lnimitable glrlisbness that time
and hard WORK cannot drlVe out OF her,
that "sbe felt like solitary memorial OF
the melodiOus past"
81 hear" she cried with her perennial
joyousness, shat Italian opera kept tum-
bling to pieces; they tell me Fourteenth
street is strewn with its wrecks. Here
am again. | can't shout, 1 can't sing
down grand orchestra. | don't belong
to the Nibelungen ring. Do you suppose
the Americans will care for little old
woman who clIngs 30 dreadfully to the
pastW
Then Nioolini and Nym Crinkle threw
up their hats and shouted: "Vive la
DivaW and Henry Abbey trembled with
suppressed admiration. and the queen OF
song came and whispered in my ear:
"Don't say l called myself little old
woman, will yOuY'
And mlscresnt that | am, swore l
wouldn't. NYM CRINKLE.