The times., 1899-05-10
The Lamentation of william winter

There was a chilly dampness in the
New York Tribune" Office yesterday. ami
il was not due to spring rainstorm. The
was OF course, the appearance of Miss
Maude Adams as Juliet. and it made the
''Tribune's" dramatic critic so unhappy
that he wrote sort of funeral Grafton on
it. Mr.. William Winter has long been
known as the jeremiah of New York crit
les. and his lamentation on this particular
subject would do honor to the weeping
prophet OF Jerusalem.
The other dramatic writers Of the city
are practically unanimous in their opinion
OF Miss Adams Juliet AS was expected
by those who saw her Lady Babbie. her
performance was characterized by girlish-
ness simplicity. and disregard of theatrl-
cal conventionalities. She kept in sight
the fact stated most pointedly by Shakes
peare that Juliet at the time OF her
meeting with Romeo not quite fourteen
years old. and that. even making allowance
for the early maturity of southern girl,
she would hardly develop in few short
days into woman of tremendous fire and
force of character. This fact of Juliet's
youth is the enormous obstacle in the way
of most actresses who have essayed the
role, and it led to the saying that no
woman knew enough TO play the part OF
the Veronese heroine till she was too old
to look it, Miss Adams Juliet it appears.
was artless. impulsive. and pathetic rather
than passionate, melodramatic and tenn
!
To take Mr. Faversliam, Miss Adams. and Mr.
] Haekctt out OF the ordinary plays OF the day
! aud suddenly 10 launch them into Shakespeare
1 nobody familiar with their talents and with
Shakcspearcan requirements could have expected
/ them to endure. 4 balcony scene without
| passion, parting scene without the deirium
/ of gries. and potion without power
| those were the products of Miss Adams dramatic
art.
And this is what Mr.. Winter thinks is
the real thing:
The theme of "HRomeo and Juliet" IS idoatrous
/ love predestHed 10 ruin and misery, aud there
fore the play is saturated with passion and stepped
in griei. Under ordinary cirrais ances love walks
! hand in hand with hope. travcrsing a field of
| flowers. beneath blne sky and a golden sun
Under the circumstances devised in this tragedy
! love walks hand in hand with sorrow, descending
! into a lonely and sterile place, over which the
! on a chill wind OF death Almost from its first
word the play is over-bfoodcd with a strange,
vague menace OF deadly danger. Both the lovers
are conscious ot this presentiinent; both are
] aware of .,sOIne consequence yet hanging in the
: stars some baielu influence. remote hut ner-
/ rant. which win inevitably impcl thcm onward
! to despair and death, subtle spirit of evil
which they darkly know. but which they are
| powerless 10 resist
And all this business is part OF the in
! ner consciousness of a girl Of thirteen and
a boy of perhaps twenty. Yet Shakes
peare knew human nature-no one better
and he always put as much of it Us rossi-
! BILE into his plays. Perhaps il he had been
over -brooded" by Mr.. William Winter he
might have written the play differently.
but from the way he did write il one is
perfectly justified in inferring that juliet
was girl. and very simple. artless. and
exquisitely ingenious girl at that Mr..
! Winters idSa seems TO be that Romeo
/ and Juliet" is q sort of problem play after
/ the Ibsen order. bat the private opinion
OF most people win be that there never
] were two dramat,sts more unlike than