The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-04-19

1t isn't merely for dramatic reasons that Au-
gustin Daly's company of farce comedians
are worthy of careful study. There are social
considerations as well which make them inter-
estiug. The position which they hold as art
lists ia the esteem Of certain cliques of New
York's ground-swell society is a remarkabeil-
lustrattou OF what self-poised and indurated
.assul ancc illuminated by a smattering of
knowledge can accomplish in the doughy
fields of plethorc-pursed snobbery. Probably
the real reason why the flock follows blindly
the bell-wether is because the bell-wether
takes the lead. There is very large percent
age OF truth in the saying that the world ac-
'cepts man at his own valuation. 1t is much
more apt to do 80 than most people suspect,
especially when the man has loftily authori-
tative air and imparts to the world in court-of-
last-resort style of utterapce what little he
knows on a subject of which the world knows
nothing, and which vague monitions from the
grand lamasery Of snobbery intimate it is the
proper thing for the world to be in position
to at least pretend to know something. Mr..
Augustin DAILY is not to be blamed, If finding
all the conditions favorable and even inviting,
he set himself up as sort of bargain-counter
classic. His clientele were flattered to find
that at their touch the lead and the brass
turned to what at least had some of the glitter
of gold. Their adulation increased the classi-
cal prctentions of its object, and as the pre-
tensions Increased the adulation grew more
gushing; and so the action and reaction went
>on until the one became imbecile and the other
impudent.
But there is no good reason why those of us
who escaped these influences through happy cir
'cunstances of non n-propinquity should strive to
increase the delusion. Mr.. Daly's company of
players give no more artistic nor pleasing en-
tertainment than at least two other companies
of players who set themselves up on no such
high pedestal. Indeed it is doubtful il Daly's
company give the real, wholesome, and whole
souled pleasure that normaiy-constituted
individual whose natural instincts have not
been desiccated and emasculated by the blight
of prggshness and snobbery can ordinarily
derive from performances of the fairly-suc-
,cessful plays of the Madison Square or the
Lyceum company. There is a warmth, an un-
restrained vitality, wholesome humanness
about the playing of these companies that stir
the heart and the spirits, and there is no lack
of the finer artistic qualities and no neglect of
detail that would endanger the completeness
Daly's people are more assiduously drilled in
what may be called the mechanical details Of
stage business They always sag the same
thing ut the same moment and at the same
spot on the stage night after night, world
without eud. They never deyiate by shade
from the exact infection which their drill
master taught them at rehearsal in pronoun-
cling each phrase and sentence. But this is
hardly high art; it is automatics rather. Nor
can tho outcome of it he free virile, and re-
-spensive acting That the general effect of
this sort of drilling is dispiriting every one
who watches the Daily performances must be
convinced. They lack in that warm spon-
taneity which is the very soul OF comedy;
they arc exquisite in every detail Of business;
but they do not sweep one away on tides of
merriment even wnen the situations, as fire.
~queutly happens in Daily plays are fsrcica to
the last degree. Daly's people are harnessed
In too tightly to generate a strong comedy
spirit. Freedom, strength. and grace OF
movement are drilled out of them. No doubt
if there We're among them any people of real
genius these could do work deserving to be
called great despite of the drill master. But
Mr.. DAILY has no great actors or actresses
in his company. Ada Rehan, Mr.. Drew, Mrs.
Gilbert, and one or two Others are genuinely
good actors, appearing at their best in the
polite modern farcts which Mr.. Daily calls
comedies, But in the old English comedies,
which Mr.. DAILY and his adherents seem to
think his company so strong in, they are in
reality rather tiresome. If they ever pos
pessed that fullness and richness of comedy
spirit essential to restoring the warm life
currents to circulation in such semi-mummi-
fed works as ''The School for Scandal' and
''She Stoops to Conquer it has been drilled
out OF them. They assuredly do not make
the old comedies interesting and warming
now. IN view of these facts it is not easy to
see how Mr.. DAILY can claim special consider
alton and Arrogate to himself peculiar posi-
ton among American managers. He finds
among his adherentsin New York unhesitating
readiness to accord him anything he may
claim; but the time has gone by when the
''proVinces'' accept as final the Judgment OF
New York on questions of artor on any other
questions.
H. is TO be feared "The U. 8. Mail, - which tar
ried at Albaugh's through the week, will never
be embalmed as a classic. 1t possesses few of the
elements of greatness. Its construction is not
in accordance with the canons laid down by
the fathers of dramatic art. In this, II is true,
it may be elassed with most of Shakespeare's
plays; but then there is more body TO the
works of the immortal William, even if their