The San Francisco call., 1896-10-11

drama, but l believe that nine spectators
out of every ten go home from it with q
hungry, unsatistied yearning not for
more "Zenda" (the play is already in four
acts and a prologue), but they want the
curtain to ring down on a more satisfac-
tory conclusion.
Edward Rose has developed the love-
making scenes between Princess Flavia
and her handsome impostor TO as great a
length as Wagnerian love duos. Flavia
loves Rudolph; Rudolph loves Flavia.
She looks love into his eyes and he looks
love into hers, aDd the linked sweetness,
long drawn out, is so pretty and poetical
that the audience escapes by a hair s
breadth from being nauseated. But after
playing old gooseberry for so long people
are sent home with vision of the lovers
torn apart forever. All the good love-
making lost, and for the sake of what,
prayP Not even for the drunken, de-
graded cousin. Once on the throne he
could have let Flavia go away with her
tourist. 1t is for the sake of the People
with q capital P-the nation of Ruruania,
that pretty, red haired Flavia is separated
from the hero she has loved through three
acts and is given to drunken brute she
-despises. "Hang the people!" your aver
age spectator wants to say. They're not
in the play and don't care what becomes
of them"
That's the selfishness of the average
theater-goer. Novel readers can swallow
tons of seIf-sscrifce for the sake of mere
distractions. but the theater-goer refuses
to feel the least sympathy for what he
does not see with his own eyes and hear
with his own ears. 1t is beautiful idea
in a novel this unselfsh devotion of
Flavia to her people. The peoples inter-
ests are as much above those of the indi-
vidual as patriotism is above mere per-
sonal advancement, and in a novel, with
the help of description, we can realize it
all, but in a play. bah ! We none of us have
enough imagination.
1 don't think any other ending was
possible in 1.-The Prisoner of Zenda," but
that does not prevent the denouement
from being against our theater going
ethics. In a play we want to see the
heroine's fate settled, either in the bonds
of holy matrimony, or else beneath the
sod. We can go home rejoicing when she
is led to the altar by the right man, and
we can take grim satisfaction in seeing
her stabbed, or poisoned, or burned to
death. But expect US TO go home happy
when she is about to marry a weak
minded fool? No, Mr.. Rose. we have not
fortitude enough to enjoy the sacrifice,
even for the sake of the people-with a
capital P
But Hope and Rose have made a de-
iightiul play, if they do ask US to sympa-
thize with an abstraction. They have
taken US back to the realms of romance,
out of which fin-de-siecle reaIists, with
their commonplace immortality, have
been trying so hard to Danish us. There
may not be much romance in our poor
workaday world. but we like sometimes
to dream idly that there is.
The theatrical welkin has been ringing
for week with praise of Hackett's re-
markable versatility and his physical
charms. With that length OF limb, dash
of manner and tenderness in love-making,
his doom as matinee girls idol is already
sealed. l nope he won't grow vain and
puffed up. They say he is a very nice
youth at present-he is on the right side
of 25-and if he keeps his head he ought
to have great future.
Could Rose have had sneaking desire
to compose a grand opera when he
adapted "The Prisoner of Zenda" for stage
purposes? Something TO out Massenet
the "Navarraise" which takes the cake for
lots of noise and startling accompaniment?
IF SO, he has followed the Wagnerian
tradition of concealing the people who
make this music, but there must be at
least score of them behind the scenes
actively engaged in executing the "noises
without" which occur continually in
Roses stage directions. No sooner is the
curtain up than night is made hideous by
midnight jewellers brawling in chorus
without. Directly after carriage is heard
rafting over cobblestones that make
Market street seem paved with velvet by
comparison. With much laDored noise
the vehicle departs and Amelia Rassendyll
begins laugh without, so long and SO
sustained that a hyena's vocal efforts
would fade into little staccato interiec-
tions compared with it. The rest of the
play is given to an accompaniment of
bands, shouting, hurrahing, national
anthem, storm, with thunder and light
ming, bells ringing, swords clashing, battle
raging, more shouting and more hurrah-
ing, and the whole of the final scene is
gone through to the strains of prolonged
dirge and the tolling of the passing bell
for the defunct Black Elphberg. 1t was
all very effective, but the tax on the
actors lungs and voices would have been
relieved if they had burst into recitative.
Luckily most of them are blessed with
strong lungs, and can defy the tumult;
all but Miss Odell, whose voice Is too
Ieggero for grand opera. Poor Miss Odell |!
at times she has to labor to be heard rill
the veins stand out on her neck like bits
Of whipcord.
LA, la, Ia" This little interjection was
the crowning JOY of "Trilby" audiences in
Nartinetti's time. The orchestra chuckled,
the family circle bubbled over with delight