The San Francisco call., 1899-04-09

the erratic giant. Ibsen has been at work
for some time on new drama. which is
now now nearing completion and will be pro-
duced in October or November. Instead
of blazoning the fact abroad through
press agents and the accommodating
TeIpt5 newspapers as some of his English,
habit of doing under similar circum-
stances, he has kept his mouth shut even
IN the bosom of his family. His own wife
is still in complete ignorance as to the
subject of his forthcoming work
Brander Matthews and Bronson Howard
are reported to be in collaboration on
play to be used during next season bv
William II. Crane and in which the
famed Peter Stuyvesant one of the
Dutch Governors of New Amsterdam will
be the central character
Sarcey makes the following points about
"Othello," which he has seen at the
Francais:
The first act is marvel of exposi-
ton There is nothing equal to it in our
classic tragedy.
The second act is very empty
1t is all spectacle. Nothing happens. or
almost nothing. The episodes with which
Shakespeare has filled it are confused
and uninteresting.
Happily, the third act is one of the
most beautiful things in any drama, one
of the most affecting and most finished.
"In the fourth act there are episodic
scenes which complicate the action and
are unnteresting The subject it.
self is too uniform and too unhappy. We
end by disliking Othello for being too
credulouS." :"
The fifth act he approves of Of course,
his criticism, as usual, throws more light
on the French audience than on the for
eign poet
Richard LIE Galienne is rewriting his &C.
centric story, THE Quest of the Golden
Girl as musical play. Mr. Piggott is
aiding him in the dramatizatiOn and Mrs.
LleWellyn is to compose the music.
That Sardou, in spite of his unwilling
ness to submit to miscellaneous public
ity, is not averse to protecting himself
was shown in his trouble with Paul
Potter over THE Conquerors," and is now
recalled in connection with Sarah Bern
hardt's revival of LA Tosca." When this
drama was first performed in 1887 its sue
cess was injured by a morning paper,
the Gil Bias. having previously given
a full description of the piece, lessening
the effect of certain scenes. M. Sardou
Immediately sued the paper, and gained
his case year later. In summing up
it's decision the Premiere Chambre du
Tribunal affirmed that no paper had the
right to divulge the narrative of a play
previous to its first performance, since
such a proceeding constituted a real
damage to the author.
THE Cipher in the Plays and on the
Tombstone is the title of Ignatius Don
nelly's book now in press. He will pub
lish about three months later another
book, The Cipher in the Ben Jonson
Plays" to show that the Jonson plays
were also written by Bacon. He is so
confident of success that he will print
the books at his own expense and retain
the copyright, both in America and in
England
The annual Shakespearean festival at
Stratford-on-Avon will last two weeks,
beginning April II. king Henry VI"
part 2, will be the special revival of the
occasion, but more interesting to Shake
spearean scholars will be the perform
ance of Hamlet in it's entirety, accord
ing to the quarto edition of 1904. This
means a play of five acts and twenty
scenes, and it will take an entire day, a
matinee performance closing with the
play scene in the third act. with the re-
mainder in the evening, and introducing
characters and scenes unfamiliar to the
footlights. Hamlet" unabridged, is
Shakespeare's longest play, and runs to
1880 lines.