The San Francisco call., 1896-10-06
NEW PLAYS SEEN
At THE THEA TIERS
The Baldwin Season Starts
With THE Prisoner
Of Zenda."
Anthony Hopes Novel Proves
a Success in It's Ora.
matte Form.
AND ANEW svENGALI
"The Great Bonanza" Opens Auspi.
ciously at the Grand Opera.
House.

The winter season at the Baldwin
Theater opened last night with 1.-THE
Prisoner of Zenda," and crowded house
assem- bled to hear the No ch-talked-o of
play.
Most people have read Anthony Hopes 8
novel, and so much praise has been given
in the East to Edward Roses dramatiza-
ton that 'The Prisoner of Zenda"
had high reputation to live up to- and
many of the auditors were almost
expecting the disappointments that too
often come when popular novel is put on
the stage. However, Hopes novel has
had the good fortune to escape injury at
the hands of the dramatist. AS a play it
is interesting, romantic and full of action.
At times the action hovers dangerously
near the confines of m melodrama, but it
o My crosses the border line once or twice
and then but for brief period. AS rule
the action is too romantic to smack of
melodrama.
The action of the novel is crystallized
into prologue and four acts. The pro-
logue occurs early in the last century,
and has the quaint picturesqueness of
"The School for Scandal in its settings.
With rapid action the audience is shown
how the Countess of Rassendyll, young
is much older than herself, has
forgotten her marriage VOWS for
love of the heir apparent to the throne of
Ruritania. The husband returns home
Unexpectedly, and. his eyes opened by the
Princes cousin and rival in the succession
to the throne, he lays trap for his wife.
catches the words of love on the Princes
lips and fights duel in which Prince Ru-
dolph falls.
This prologue accounts for the startling
likeness which Rudolph Rassendyll,
young English tourist travelling in Ruri-
tania150 years later, bears to Prince Ru-
dolph who is on the eve of his coronation as
Rudolph the Fifth. The English tourist
is the great-grandson of the Countess of
Rassendyll.
The lead ing incidents of the novel have
been cleverly woven by the dramatist into
the play which follows; the Prince is too
drunk TO be crowned and his two faithful
officers persuade the English tourist to
impersonate royalty for day. Then fol-
lows the coronation, the love of the
Princess Flavia for the impostor. the
plots and the love complications, ending
in the rescue of the real Prince and the
parting of the lovers for the sake of honor
and duty.
In the triple role of Prince Rudolph,
Rudolph Fifth and the English tourist,
James K. Hackett bore himself very well.
His part demanded quick transitions and
he gave them with great aptness. The
change from the languid tourist to the
drunken prince was a long step, but
his touch was ightest and surest when
he was supposed to be impersonating
the King at the coronation. The i'm
postor was as dignified and majestic as a
real Prince, but ever and anon he forgot
his role, spoke with brusqueness and
familiarity or winked with schoolboy fun
ar his fellow conspirators, and then pull
ing himself together again became every
inch King.
at the end of the third act the audi
ence demanded a speech, to which Hackett
responded with few jocose remarks on
the silver question and the financial state
secret of Ruritania.
Isabel Irving looked very pretty in her
red wig as the Princess Flavia.
Her role consisted chiefly of. love-
making, which she executed gracefully
and naturally. Maude Odell had to labor
too hard to express the melodramatic
emotions of the unhappy Antoinette de
Mauban, but she seemed to have good
conception of her role, though she was
physically not robust enough to render it
comfortably.
Most of the other characters were well
acted. Charles Walcot and Howard Gould
were both practical and natural as the
two conspirators who melted the impostor
to impersonate the Prince. Arthur Elliott
was intense and wicked as the treacherous
Black Elphburg, and all the minor char
acters, particularly in the coronation
scene, were clever studies.
''The Prisoner Of Zenda" gives oppor-
tunities for picturesque staging W hich have
not been neglected.