Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-13
Lands and
the oen~teriaround which everything else

III 0AOOAAN AAiNi WI ming SAS
gr6vitates.
Theater managers in Paris are COM
planning of the ack of patronage. The
papers are unable to discover the reason,
but we think thai if a well ventilated
American theater with comfortable seats
and no stuffy pigeon holes of boxes was
to be set down in Paris that il would be
full every night.
How these Parisians enjoy the theater!
They give their attention wholly to the
play, and if it pleases them they ap-
plaud so warmly, ladies as well as gen.
tlemen. Give me q French audience to
go to the theater with! One enjoys a
play doubly in an atmosphere of enthusi-
asm. / remember the face of q young
man who sat near us when we saw Sarah
BernhGrdt in Theodore; as the play pro-
gressed he became more and more alb
sorbed, he leaned further over the bal
cony, every fine sentiment well said
would bring his hands together in ap-
plause and ct last explanations began to
escape him: "Kill him! kill him like q
brave woman, - he counseled Theodore
when she stood with wild eyes and
blanched face before q prisoner praying
for a dagger in his heart lest the rack
should wrench the names of his conspir-
ators from him. Theodore does kill
him,
o RON COURAGE
but from fear. as the prisoners chief
conspirator is her lover, and could any
body but Sarah Bernhardt look as she
did after it; every muscle of her face
abandoned to horror and fear.
The French actors act with all their
hearts; every one who appears in any
part is animated, easy and natural. A
French audience never ridicules excess
of emotion on the part of the player,
and consequently he throws himself into
his part with abandon, and acts for all
he is worth. One sympathizes with him
and likes him for his earnestness,
whethe, one approves of his conception
of a character or not. Whereas the An
~glo-SaXon actor expresses the deepest
sentiments by repression and sometimes
impresses one more by his silence and
stiffness han by sound or motiOn; the
French actor tries to express everything,
and he succeeds remarkably well, too.
For instance, when the hero in Theodore
tells the story of his love to his friends at
the table, well, he would never have
dom it in an English play; but suppos-
ing such a case, he wou have spoken
in q low, constrained and intense voice,
whereas the French actor gets excited,
his voice rises higher and higher, he
rises TO his feet, he slaps his heart and
goes into a fine frenzy of emotion. Later
on in the play when he has exhausted
every known gesture for the expression
of agony and despair, he
SHAKES HIS HEAD FURIoUsLY.
At this point I laughed, but the audi
ence a~pplauded vigorously, and the ex-
citable young man near by cried,
s'Bravo!"
appropriate in a fiery French play, but
is apt to strike one rather oddly in an
English drama. suppose that English
actors in q French play seem cold to the
Frenchmen, and it is certain that the
French acting of Shakespeare seems de-
cidedly warm. Warmth is more par
donable than GOODNESS, however, and the
French acting is certainly delightful.
Mounet Sully's Hamlet Is an example.
His is a tender Hamlet; q poet Hamlet
melting with emotion; a sensitive, deli
cate Hamlet swayed almost 20 madness
by every feeling, and not very strong on
the legs of his common sense; in fact,
an ideal French Hamlet. The play as
arranged by Dumas is more effective
than as il is usually played. The cur
tain rises On the darkness OF q night
scene with watchmen keeping guard,
aud the ghost appears in q veritable
ghost-like way, not suddenly, but grad
uaIly growing upon the sight arst in ore