The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1899-03-07
MISS WALSH
IS At LAST
INDICATED
She Scores a T triumph
in ''La TosCa.
OFFENBACH AT THE TlV0Ll
ALHAMBRA OPENS WITH PAT
RIoTIC MELoDRAMA.
A New English Farce at the Alcazar.
Miss Waldorf in "The Hunch-
back'-New Vaude-
vile.
OFFENBACH AT THE TlvoLI
ALHAMBRA OPENS WITH PAT
RIoTIC MELODRAMA.

Revenge I; sweet ! can see Blanche
Walsh reading the newspapers this
morning and enjoying a well-earned
gIoat at our expense. Once upon
time this same young woman appeared
here without signal success. and-well,
you remember the sort of town she
called U.S. But now at last she is come
into her own and the laugh is on the
other side.
In La Tosca." at the Columbia Thea
ter last night, she had part to play
and she played it as no other woman
has played it in English, and her
triumph in the presence of an audience
that was at first none too hopeful ana
sympathetic was overwhelmingly com
plete. After the premature disclosure
of Janet Waldorf and the unsklIled
genius of Nance O'Neil, Miss Walsh
strenuous acting and disciplined tenn
permanent are doubly welcome she IS
not q question Of the morrow, but
good. glad fact of to-day. she Is an
actress to be reckoned with seriously.
To say she has fallen into the mantle
of the late Fanny Davenport would De
cheap praise She acted Tosca last
night as Fanny Davenport never dared
to act it, She is indebted to Miss DaV-
export for the play, the production
Melbourne Macdowell. and the oppor-
tunity-that is all.
AS far. back as I can accurately re-
member Fanny Davenport was
plump, amiable person, who never
struck the real spark. but who was al
ways fairly reliable and who always
attended to it that her productions
were sumptuously and artistically
seemed and furnished. Scenic sumptu-
BUSINESS was not conspicuous last night
1t was perhaps the same scenery, but
grown tired with the years. Mr.. Mac
dowell was unchanged-the Same large,
industrious personality. The play was
the same old Sardou melodrama-bru-
tai. shocking and obviously sensational
(but not. l may add, larded with OBJ
scene religious fiubdub, a la Sign of
the Crosse. But the woman, Floria
Tosca, was new, and she gripped you
at times almost-I say it in modesty-
as Bernhard used to do.
The most notable quality in Miss
Walsh's representation was in its in
genuousness. Throughout the various
scenes of love. jealousy, terror, revul-
sion and despair this righteousness
was never wholly absent. Floria was
always a girl whose heart was love
and whose head was heart; she was
unaffected, unheroic-even in the big
moment when she stabbed Scarpia the
keynote was simplicity, and L am glad
to mention that she did not end this
scene with the usual theatrical device
of placing candles at the dead mans
head.
1t must not be inferred that Miss
Walsh's representation was IN any
sense anaemic or overrepressed. 1t was
full of flesh and blood and gave prac-
tically unlimited vent to vocal and
facial expression, but 1t was played
from the inside, so to say, without ap-
parent theatrfcalism and with the un-
erring spell of sincerity Miss Walsh
has not only the talent, the mimeuc
gift. the human voice and the magnetic
personality, but she has the technique
She is an artist. Blanche Walsh has
indicated herself and the equine is
happily on US. SO fall in line and do
the proper thing and there will not be
as much vacant upholstery in the Co
lumbia as there was last night.
ASHTON STEVENS