The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-05-12

| lesser and varying emotions as the &C
ton proceeds. This emphasis of feel
ing cannot be given by modern full
dress suit, nor by any stiff modern
costume, as Mr.. Millett long ago re-
marked: yet the bedclothes which You
leave tumbled in the morning, as one
experimenter found by taking notes
of his state of mind when he left
them, will quite accurately do it. In
this Greek freedom of costume, there
fore. will be stored not only grace and
beauty but majestic power.
That the Nassar girls will know how
to exploit every fold of the studied,
flowing dress on this coming occasion
it is not necessary for me to foreten
The stage on which they are to play
will be necessarily reduced and re-
formed and will have all that is mod
ern knocked out of it. Those who
hear the Poughkeepsie performance
will be, maginably, in Greece The
very well trained chorus will also ac-
cent this fact, for it will not only sing,
but it will join in and be an integral
part of the play.
The passage in love which the cho-
rus will have to render, beginning
eros Henikate Makan," it viii be re-
membered is touching part of the
"Antigone." Let me venture to give
one passage of it:
Love, unconquered in the fight: love who
mskest havoc of wealth, who keepest thy vigil
on the soft cheek Of maiden. thou roamest
over the sea and among the homes Of jewellers
in the wilds. No immortal can escape thee. nor
any among men whose life is for day; and he
to whom thou hast come is mad.
Here is feeling not less modern than
ancient, and spoken or sung by a
chorus of young ladies it cannot fail to
be tenderly pathetic in view of the
near fate of Antigone. Prof. Charles
Eliot Norton, than whom no one is
more competent to speak. has said of
the Greeks:
The Greek exhibition of passion. as
we learn from the works of plastic art,
and as we gather from the criticisms
of Plato and Aristotle. was as intense
as our own: but there was less self-as.
sertion and less sentimentalism in it's
display"
Here, though, is the philosophy Of
sentiment, if not all the pure ecstasy
which it defines.
The prolslem of the musical setting
of the play is well solved. No phopo-
graph tells us what passed for music
with the Greeks, or how they world
have shaped their melody or pitched
their chords But a true taste is some
times more efficient than knowledge.
Its exercise at Nassar will show this at
the proper moment. What has been
done is to adapt the music of Men
delssohn to the play. There viii be
with it full orchestral accompani-
ment-Seidl's or Damrcschs, most like
iv-the regular chorus being fifteen,
assisted by large supplementary one.
all of the two groups being college
students. The orchestra Will be com
posed of twenty-seven players.
The play of "Antigone" was chosen
on account of the supreme interest
that in all literary annals has been
proved 20 center in its chief character.
No nobler type Of wornanhood comes
down to US. Antigone's devotion. her
sisterly love. her undaunted courage
with youth and loves sealed promise
hers. never fail 20 evoke sdmira ton
and pity a. she accepts the doom TO
dare to do and die for the right The
plot is simple and bat heightens the
tragic grandeur OF the play. ! give II
below in brief extension of the
Ebretto's synopsis:
The king (C7eonl has forbidden any,
one. under penalty OF death, TO bury
Polyniees, that his spirit may wander,
hopeless outcaSt- in the realms be
low Nevertheless, AntiEone, the
widow sister Of Polyniees, bJries him,
having sought first. but in vain, 70 en-
list the HELM OF her sister Isneue- Sae