The herald., 1896-09-30
! At THE THEATERS !
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LOS ANGELES THEATER.-All of
society was present at the production
of Madame Sans Gene last night, and
they witnessed in many respects most
consummate stage presentment of the
wonderful epoch that dawned for
France after the storm and tumult of
the Revolution. A passing, transitory
picture, it is true of those tremendous
times, like unto the revelation Of
spreading landscape by the luminous
lightning's flash, but the spiendor
and vigor were there in their
fullness and strength, because, of
the art that underlaid it. In this
oosmic comedy Sardou has pictured
with trenchant force and graphic fa-
cility the men who brushed aside the
old nobility and made of themselves
ancestors"
The student of history, the man of the
libraries, as we'll as he who is absorbed
In the world of today can regard the
exploitation of this play by Kathryd
Kidder and the players who surroutld
her with a singular and pressing inter-
est. The shifting and changing goals of
character, the play of fancy and the
pomp and panoply of a glorious period
press for place and expression in the
picture and call for high measure of
talent for their adequate delineation.
Taking the production as whole, one of
the most striking impressions is that of
its symmetrical naturalnesS. You fol-
low the fortunes of this washerwoman
from the laundry to the palace, and you
are not impelled to exact a single ex-
otic flower of imagery to add to the
wonderful garland that is woven before
the minds eye. You must braid no
fragile dream on the dusky forehead of
yesterday to give force and life to the
people OF the past, for they stand be-
fore you. 1t is here that we find the art
of the production in the agglomerate,
and this naturalism comes not from the
tpresentment of strongly marked char
acteristics--men and women of marked
eccentricities-but in the clean, smooth,
even development of the ordinary ele-
ment5 that make up individualities.
Therein lies the truest art of the player,
and from the stirring street scenes In
Paris with the moving surges of the
Marseillaise. swelling the air, the dra-
matte scene between Lefebre and Cath
crime, until the last scene when the
central characters in the drama nat
urally go their ways to bed at Com
peigne, these requirements were COM
piled with on lines of conscientious fl
deity. ,.lte.
IT has remained for Kathryn Kidder
to give graces to gaucherie and charms
to igorance in her impersonation of the
Duchess of Dantzic, erstWhile washer
woman. Certainly it must be conceded
that Miss Kidder has the true artistic
temperament for her stage manners are
most felicitous, and her nimble wit cap-
tivates alike by it's archness and grace.
AT no time does Miss Kidder touch the
grosser chords in presenting this apoth-
eosized laundry woman, but every stroke
that makes the picture, is delivered with
the marvellous finesse, the breadth and
power of the master hand. Albeit, she
is beautiful woman, and when she
reveals her loveliness in that piquant
scene with the gown makers, there is
so much of naivete and classic wohanly
contour revealed that the charm is ire
sistible. Miss 1Iidders career can be fore
cast as brilliant one in the histrionc
world.
Perhaps Mr.. Cooks Napoleon was
the character most prominently invested
with interest. 1t demonstrated a close
and studious apprehension of the crucial
points of the man of destiny. scholarly
in the extreme. Mr.. RusselPs Marshal
Lefebre, and Mr.. Shaw's Fouche also
stand prominently in the picture In
fact, all OF the forty characters who
figure in the play were most acceptably
presented AS to the stage settings,
they are the most perfectly appointed
and artistic we have seen in local thea
ter.
COMING ATTRACTION-On of the
best dramatic companies ever seen here
the Frawley company. from the Colum-
bia theater, San Francisco, will begin a
season of four weeks at the Los Angeles
theater on Tuesday next, when will be
presented for the first time to our the
ater goers The Great Unknown, COM
edy from the German by Augustin
Daly