The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-12-06

AS for Agnes, the girl whom Belgraff
controls hypnotically, she is given no OPP
portunitv of showing that she possesses
either a mind or heart, and her utter
mental habbiness arouses only shocked
surprise and creepy feeling of disgust.
Miss Marie Wainwright has a thankless
task in her puppet-like role. Its one oppor-
tunity lay in the expression of horror,
nd of that she took such good advantage
with her cold, stony glare and white, petri-
fed face that she actually aroused a re-
sponsive shudder.
The most sympathetic of characters,
and that is not saying much for him, is
Agnes lover, a manly, commonplace
young fellow. who does nothing to
arouse especial interest, except on the
strength of the proverb which says that
all the world loves a lover. The rest of
the dramatis persona are cast in such an
unheroic mold that no one cares much
what becomes of them. Even the comic
Grand boy is selfish and his affections
have not the sticking plaster consistency
for the comic maio which arouses the
admiration of the gallery for the normal
stage errand-boy.
In short, despite their excellent char
acter drawing, Wilton Lackaye and his
gifted company are placed, for lack of
sympathetic material, in the position of
the Israelites when called upon to make
| bricks without straw.
The mistake lay in believing that a
| weird story and the artistic rendering of
sordid characters were sufficient of them
III,
hew them as you will, though. the ends of
the dramatist are to appeal to the heart or
the disabilities of his audience. If he
pipe the audience will dance (metaphor-
ically speaKing), and if he mourn it will
lament, but let him brin out the scalpel
and the stethoscope for cold analysis and
the audience All! where is it? Gone
to hear rival drsmatists, of course. Ibsen
and other morbid gentlemen have tried
spreading out grewsome dramatic feasts,
but the paying public has never been
tempted to their board. Charles Klein
has now shown us that without something
romantic to fire the heart and the imagi-
nation even a fascinating stady in hyp-
notism cannot make a successful play.
Just across the way from the Baldwin
Joseph Grismer gave his ideas of hero,
at the Column bia. in part he had written
to order for himself, aided and abetted by
Clay M. Greene, and rich, ripe, luscious
feast of noble deeds be made of it.
Captain Ford could have fed DR.. Belgraff
with the crumbs of good deeds that fell
from his tabIe-ayel a dozen such, so
bountifully was his measure pressed down
and running over with all the virtues in
the calendar. Captain Ford was honest,
manly and noble; he unselfishly thou hit
of the heroine before he dreamed of think
ing OF himself; when foully provoked he
bore taunts rather than forget that he was
gentleman, and he had the courage to
stay and face the tortures of prison when
urged to seek safety in flight. Cold words
cannot convey any true idea of Captain
Ford's noble deeds, for Joseph Grismer
has played many parts in his time-heroic
parts-and he has made Captain Ford q
conglomeration of the heroic qualities to
be found in all of them.
1t was the old and the new-Grismer
showing the antique hero of meodrama,
all virtue and glory and Lackaye giving
US modern character study, as unsoftened
by romance as the diss ecting-room is.
What we wanted was happy medium
between the two. MARIE EVELYN.
Green Room Gossip.
When Thomas w. Keene made his last
trip to England he visited Boswotth field
and determined TO bring back 70 his
friends peculiar souvenirs Richard III
variety of potatoes. So he bought busheI