Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-04-05


tempt is made to set Mounet- Sully up as
the first tragedian of his time it can excite
no emotion more serious than pity. The
absurdity of the thing to any one not sc
aggressively patriotic as the average Pa.
risian is at once manifest. Compare Mou
net-Sully. FIR instance, with Booth, Irving
and Sulvin.
There is absolutely no respect in which
Booth was not the superior of the French,
man. He possessed a much more pleasing
personality, a million times the subtlety,
and as Il read Ter he was to Mounet-Sully as
the schoolteacher is to the child who is at
tempting to master its alphabet.
With Irving the shortcomings of the
French tragedian are not so marked, fol
they both have strong mannerisms, but
every word, every step, every change of eN.
preston of the Englishman is characterized
by thoughtfulness, and there is a strong
spirituality or idealism about his work that
Mounet-Sully cannot approach, much less
excel
Salvini-the elder, of course-is, however,
the actor who most strikingly disposes OF
the pretensions of the French tragedian.
They are both addicted to robustiou>
methods, but Salvini' : are always consist
ent, seldom iuartistic and never impOtent
while Mounct-Sully frequently are.
To sum it up the representative of the
Academic Franchise, while a line actor, is
not great one His work is married by
too much crudity, offensive mannersm
and spasmodic jerkiness to entitle him tC
rank with such men as Booth and Salvini
or even Irving. His methods may be APP
preciated in France, country which has
produced many excellent comedians and
some really great tragediennes, but never
but one wonderful tragedian excepting
Talma.
The company supporting Mounet- Sully is
mediocre or worse, with but one bri ght
spot. That is his leading lady, Mime. SECOND
Weber, who is an actress of great power
and much tineSse Her art however, seems
to have not Yet reached its zenith. Con
scientiousness and a desire to avoid ranting
seem to be the distinguishing characters,
tics of her work, and she possesses UNI
questioned dramatic strength and appears
to be quite young great things may yet be
looked for from her.
The engagement of Mounet-Sully up tC
this time has been anything but success
full one, rows of empty chairs being pain
fully in evidence at most of the perform.
ances. Mounet- s;ully is worth seeing the
representative of certain school of acting,
but any one who has listened to the incom-
parable and subtle Booth, the powerful
ana ROBUST SaINlDl or the spiritual ana
painstaking Irving will experience some
thing of disappointment unless he goes pre-
pared to the inferior of these men.
utopia, Limited, the latest joint work
of those past masters of comic opera con
struction, Gilbert and Sullivan, has been
packing the Broadway theater at every per
Torrance. 1t is generally conceded that
neither librettist nor composer is heard at
his best in ''Utopa,' MIR. Gilbert s falling
short being much more marked than that
of Sir Arthur sullivan.
1t would be strange indeed if two men
could 90 on forever writing such meri
torious operettas as The Mikado," Pa
thence" "Iolanthe, -" Pirates of Penzance'
and "Pnafore, and it is by these standards
that the distinguished coilaborators always
have been judged There are many little
Gilbertian shafts of sarcasm in "Utopa'
and considerable music which is typically
Sullivanesque and therefore decidedly in
teresting
But the st ttingof utopia" is what