The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-10-02

perhaps the day is coming when
-, with a six-act tragedy IN pIahh
$50 will he something better thah
io1ye for the Dmic weeklies. perhaps
+t{e n,.osv moLern end of the century
ill see a return of the poet drama,
: h,,o,ob+ about by the immediate and
. ,,-o,+5-v-ide attention given to Rostand
..(,,:-ano de Bergerac." America mas
vat n see the play, but everybody here
eaera, to know something ABOUT II.
,rI,tA name Cvrano is no longer confused
win cologne and hair tonic. People
-, confident that it stands for a play
o very poetic and beautiful one, whose
hero wears a frightfully big nose and
does. all sorts of secret valor and self
sacrifice. for the girl he loves. 'Cy-
.rano" has hardly been a popular sue
cess in England, but like the Ipsen
Dlavs If ha had its influence on Eng
lands popular dramatists. 1t is a pc
cntiar fact that to-day Shakespeare
successors are responsible for only one
kind of ORIGINAL dramatic entertainment
and that the Gaiety type of musical
comedy. Their problems come from
Denmark, their farces from France.
1t is only a little time since sydney
Grundy wrote an essay in which he
went to the pains of confessing why
1T. was easier and more profitable to
write plays that already had been writ
ten in France. He said that the public
which damned him for wasting his
talents on adaptations made an in
variable custom of going to see the
:. adaptations and staying away from ms
serious. original work Bernard Shaw
49, 7 don 7y-ffi too
and playwriters, publishes his plays in
the two English-speaking countries
that people may find out that they have
been written. Then he says, the Brit
ish drama has exhausted me and
have exhausted the British drama,
gives up his position as critic Of the
Saturday Review and marries a fellow
socialist (who is rich). When the
author of Lady Windemere's Fan"
and AN Ideal Husband was con-
fronted by success, he said: The
drama is the lowest form of literature"
Mr.. Pinero and Mr.. Jones are in earn
est, but the one is not yet over the
Ibsen reaction and the other is always
pursued by Sardou and a moral You
have to read Shaw in his books if you
want an original English play-and
even then Shaw strikes you as a sort
of Irish Ibsen So now that the poetic
drama is. in the way to become a fash
ion the ready English play builder will
try a hand at that. I have just been
reading extracts from and criticisms on
one that is written by Louis Parker and
Murray Carson. 1t is entitled The
Terma CANT" and Miss Olga Nethersole
is playing the star part at Her Majes-
tvs Theater. London.
The lady of this part is a young
Princess .Beatrix of Mora; she is ca
PRECIOUS and arrogant. and he. people
:can. her :Termagant." Roderigo, a
young noble, has been suggested, and
has suggested himself, as a suitable
husband for her, but although Beatrix /
regards him well. she resents outside
suggestion, having the preconceived
idea that her husband must be an
ideal one and of her own choosing. So
she sends ROdeTigo over the deep blue
sea to help Christopher Columbus dis
cover America, and, woman-like, frets
While he is gone. Roderigo comes
back safe and sound, but his clothes
are soiled and seedy and not bit i'm
proved by promiscuOus American
patching. and all Beatrix's humane de-
light in his safe return is quite over
powered by disgust at his appearance.
You think of Roxane and poor Ce-