The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1899-03-08
~THE RLAY@


Nowadays women are rarely seen on the
stage In comedy roles. All women of the
stage are hankering for lines mixed with
tears and deep signs, made more realistic
perhaps by the tight lacng said to go with
handsome costumes and superb forms.
Naturally enough, when the throng is go
ing mad for tear producing climaxes and
the like, there are any number of tiresome
plays going the rounds presented by more
tiresome actresses This fact makes Eu-
genie Blair's production of "a Lady of
Quality" more refreshing. Not that 1t is
comedy, for 1t has an abundance of tears
and signs, but because 1t is almost per-
fectly presented. "a Lady of Quality" is
an old English pastoral play by Frances
Hodgson Burnett and Stephen Townsend.
1t serves to tell the story of "Clorinda
Wildaires," handsome holden, tomboy
In breeches, who suddenly becomes a wo-
man of the world, stately queen with
wit, sarcasm and irony at her tongues end
yet with the tender, gentler emotions of
a true woman hidden away in her heart
The first act shows her in male attire in
the midst of drinking frolic with a lot
of royal rakes. She banters one for
fencing contest, triumphs over him and
next calls for an over-religious recluse who
has drank too much wine to make a ribald
speech. The next act shows her a woman
of the world just beginning to repent Bit
terly of the past, which grows bitterer as
the plot thickens. Sir John Oxen, the
young nobleman of easy reputation, over
whom Clorinda had triumphed in the fenc-
ing contest, steps into her life-makes her
his toy. To win a bet with his friends
he carries off a lock of her hair he had
procured one night when she met him in
the garden. In a drunken fit he hides his
trophy and cannot recall the deed in his
sober moments. tie is poor and he con-
spires to marry an heiress. He tells Clo-
rinda, but not until after the news reaches
her and she has engaged herself to the
Earl of Dunstanwolde. Yet she loves the
Duke of Osmonde. Oxen met the fair
beauty in the garden and seeks to triumph
over her, but she adroitly turns the tables.
Between acts lhree and four she is welded
to the earl, but oxen is cast off from his
fiance and is the laughing stock of his
friends. The earl soon dies, and Oxen
comes to annoy her. This gives room for
a strong scene, in which she triumphs.
BY a strange coincidence Oxen RECEIVERS
the lock of hair and confronts her with 1t.
This is the strongest scene of the play.
He goads her to desperation by threatening
to tell the Duke of Osmonde, who she is
now to marry, that she was once play
thing of his She pOrtrayS SuperDly the
emotions that control woman of spirit
In a spirit of frenzy she deals him a blow
with the handle of a loaded riding whip
To her horror it was Oxen's death blow.
Outside her guests are dancing. Some one
knocks She hides the body under sofa.
Then mastering herself she receives the
guests. Only her sister discovers the Sc
cret. 'Oxen's hand protruded from under
the Sofa This her sister hides from the
GUEST. Clornda determines ont to let the
deed entirely blight her life. At night she
bore the body into the cellar and hid 1t
away. Oxen Is given up as one missing.
She moved away from Dustanwolde house
and had the passages to the cellar blocked
with masonry The last act shows her in
room of Widaires hall. The Duke of Os-
monde overhears her as she tells her sister
the secret 1T was not murder" he de-
clared He would have done the same. He
clasps her in his arms and the curtain falls
on a pretty denouement.
Miss Blair has never essayed part that
suited her better. She was seen best when
she assumed that cold air of Indifference
and superiority over man. 1t has been told
on The fair Eugene that she once said that
a woman did not have to be very clever
to wind a man around her finger like
thread
William Bramwell as Sir John Oxen was
the conceited and calculating rake that the
authors intended him. The rest of the cast
was well selected
The costuming Is magnificent and the
scenic effects grand. Miss Blair may be
well proud of her fist appearance in "a
Lady of Quality"