St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-03-22

Fanny Davenport's Presentation
of Sardou's "CleOpatra."

or SafuOu'S "CleOpatra.
The brilliant audience that filed the
Metropolitan last night, trimming with
pleasurable anticlpationS of Fanny Day
exports production of Sardou's great
masterpiece, cleopatra" was not one
whit disappointed. 1t was brilliant
production, admirably played and mag
niticently staged. and, though the SIX
acts necessarily took much time, inter
est was untlaggiug to the end. The
play deals with story than which his
tory has produced few more fascinat-
ing. Cleopatra was the most bewitch-
ing woman in the world, and aptiy
termed 1.-The serpent of the
Nile" Her arts were endless;
the world stood aghast at her extrava-
ganceS or personal conduct and hDan-
cial expenditure, but none reb1ked her.
So Kaleidoscope was her brilliancy that
ere one could recover from the astonish-
ment of her latest vagary, she had
turned TO another more wonderful still.
She was a queen, but not a Zenobla; a
consOrt OF great man, but not an
ASpasia. In truth, she was sui generS.
So many characteristics were never
bound up Ill one woman, II one
tenth of the stories concerning her can
be believed. For her Antony kissed
away kingdoms and provinces" At
one moment he lavished upon her the
most eXtravagant praises; the next he
cursed her right royalty, and the next,
seeing her again, he lavished his praises
upon her. No one ever called Cleopatra
a good woman, and few are brave
enough to call her bad. The faults OF
the Oriental voluptuary were those
for which society grants no excuse
III the weaker sex, and yet chastity
stands silent before the pyramidal
prOdlgality of the last of the Ptolomies.
Whatever may be the proportion OF
truth to error in the traditions of the
cOurteSan queen, she stands today as the
highest type of female beauty, Joined
to wit and intellectual vig0r; the acme
of pertidy, the incarnation of the myth
ical Aphrodlte, the apotheOsis of SEN
suality. Such was the Cleopatra the
world loves to hear of. Poets have
sung her praises, essayists have
exhausted themselves describing
her multitudinouS vagaries and the
gorgeousnesS Of her pageants. Two
may be said of her:
Age cannot wither nor custom stale
Her infinite variety.
She was colossal in all things. and
this may be the justification for the
universal palliation of her offenses. Be-
sides, she paid dearly for them at last,
and who is there to not feel pity for one
whose long train of meteoric splendor
vanished into utter darkness in the
twlnkling of an eye? The world has
never seen another woman so gorgeous
in her triumphs, SO tragic in her
fall. Egypt died as the asp sent
the poison coursing through her veins,
and today its corpse serves to bring out
in holder relief the splendOr of the land
while it lay beneath her spell. Cleopatra
is dead. The world will never see an
other. She is loved. not for what she
was, but for what she has done toward
showing by contrast what women should
be. Women may be thankful for Cleo
patra; she has raised woman to an emf
nence she could only attain by COMPARE
son with the depths to which she de-
Scended.
The production which Miss Davenport
has given Sardou's best effort is the
most elaborate this country has ever
known, and has earned for her the
proud title of the Irving of America.
This CLEOPATRA" is by Sardou. 1t
differs radically from Shakespeare's
play. The author has selected some of
the most radical passions, traits and
foibles delineaIed by his predecessors,
COrneille, Lacroix, Gauthier and the i'm
mortal bard, and, with keen dramatic in
Stinct, he has nodded these together in
one brilliant spectacular mosaic.
The drama is formulated in six acts,
the first of which shows the quay at
TarSus. where Marc Antony awaits Geo
patra to pronounce the Judgment of
Rome upon her. She rnn'"s r""''' ''"''