The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-11-01
RJLL NYE ON SARDOU.
Working Together, They Could
Make the Welkin Ring.
GRAVE DEFECTS OF THERMIDoR.
-. French Writer Is Short on Local
Gags, and bis Humor Is Too Blood
CurdIing-Shepard's Greatness.
copyright, 1891. by Edgar w. Nye. ]


wv YORK. Oct. 26.-[Special Correspond
| are }-"Thermidor" is a beautiful French
law written by my fellow dramatist Vic
/ trien Sardou, the author of Fedora"
| ra other meiodramatic, tragic and highly
Thoop:ng plays.
Probably the stage offers few better illus
Itations of direct and diagonal contrast in
1s,amatic treatment than that of Mr.. Sar-
Ndou and my own
aThermidor" is a play which covers but
oue day. This offers no opportunity for
Icbildren to grow up or sixty-day notes to
lame TO maturity. 1t is very busy day,
Ihoweyer, being one of those days during
In. Reign of Terror. when the mighty
meat ak of that mercurial people had SO
insch to do.
The motif Of the play is the discovery
sy the sans culottes of a young woman
no is evidently a child of aristocratic
llrh. That was her offense. 1t was
xsaugh in those days. If | had lived in
lose times would have returned to my
karv methods and eaten my pie with my
1nife That way ony safety seemed to
In. To be an aristocrat or the child OF an
I.rstocrat at that time was a most I'M
Healthy thing TO do.
This young lady is Fabienne Lecoul-
ntux. The part is PLAYED by Miss De
Wolfe, who certainly earns her salary, be-
hg pulled around over the stage by the
sri.. most all of the time, either by her
Iwer or the sans culotte. canaille and
Iruzle-dazze of the highly sensitive and ex-
Ipbsiye French nation. She seems to be
ran almost constant scuffie with some
fne while asking all hands to be kind
|noagh to avaunt.
No one in the audience weeps. The
heart is not touched. You watch the spec
Etor during the entire play and you see
- tear--only the wild. frightened, appre-
snsive eye of one who has just lighted
kAinch cannon hrecracker and is waiting
brit to bust.
MARTIAL Hugon is the lover of this girl,
nt although she is very fond of him, she
almost sure that it is not right. for she
las associated herself with the Ursuline
listers, thinking him dead So she is all
4gn up in her mind, and when at the end
the play she was led away to be be-
taded could see that she was really glad
hit
In Sardou's work, the whole play and all
D characters cluster about the guillotine
= the last act. In mine they gather about
tEatermelon.
Il How different the motive, How diamet-
tally and totally different the method
"a the motif
Labnssiere is an old friend and school
pte of Martial, and he gives his atten-
I'm entirely to saving the life of the I'M
htanate Fablenne. but fails after all, so
IN in the last act we have the pleasure of
sang her go TO the guillotine and her
yer shot down like big red steer in the
tacago abattoirs. For this reason we say
1--WE go away: at is mechanically per-
bet No critic will ever attack the con-
ruction of this play, but / never shall
pant to see it again"
Ia the first act Labussiere rescues Fabi-
hne from as tough crowd of Norman
hasherwomen as ever sozzled their soiled
nen in the Seine. He being a
Jerk pronounced clark) in the depart
}aent Of public safety, aids in saving her