The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1902-11-23
MRS. FISKE And Her new PLAY
MARY or MAGDALA" EFFECTIVE
on THE STAGE.
paul Heyse's Work Compared with Others
on the Same Thcme-Mrs. Ftske's
ImpersonatiOn - Hackett In The
Crisis"-''lmprudeDce AT the Empire.

And among them was one VINO
turned her head with that movement
flower has VIXEN stirred by breeze. Her
eyes were sultry. darkened with stibium; on
her check was the pink of tho seashell. al d
her lips made one yermilion rhyme. The
face was oval and rather small and though
il wns beautiful as victory. the wonder of
her eyes, which looked the haunts of hope
fulfilled, the wonder Of her mouth, which
seemed 10 promise more than mortal mouth
could give, were forgotten In her hair, which
was not orange nor a me. but blending Of
both
The man who watched this beautiful
creature was tall and sinewy with the
comeliness Of the East Dear Cod he
muttered "- il would be the birth
day of my life"
All this was at circus given by Herod
Antipas. Tetrarch Of Galiee 1t was writ
ten by an artist, Mr.. Edgar Saltus, who was
born to wear the purple Of French or
Italian prose rather than the drab and
cautious mantle OF our soberer mother
tongue. Now, the MARY Magdalen' Of
Edgar Saltus is as superior to the Mary
VI o idien OF Paul Hevse as Is Heyse's play
to, say, Hall Gaines futile melodrama.
to make over his half-forgotten novel-it IS
out of print and twelve years old-into play
50 we must be content with Mrs. Fiske's
Offering al the Manhattan Theatre.
And very enjoyable play it is despite
the absence Of exalted literary merit. Paul
Heyse is not a genius. Few modern Ger
man men of letters are, Sudermann has I'M
ut hot tst nd ra natis at
he learned the technique OF the latter from
the French and Ibsen-Ibsen. who was
himself close student of Angler and Du-
mas fls But even Sudcrmann can hardly
he called a man of commanding genius.
1t is his Dutch-like fidelity in the observa-
tion Of manners, his new grouping OF events
and the sheer brilliancy with which he
forces to a triumphant issue from his thesis
that compel our admiration.
Brains plus a poetic temperament and
that incommensurabe something called
genius we find in Haupt mann. not in Suder-
mann. or in the half-crazy Strindberg
literary Anarchist and misogynist. Heyse
belongs to the middle years Of the past
century, the turbid hour of Romanticism
Of Schumann's symphonies, Kaulbach's
gigantic, distorted frescos, the chilly
pietstic canvases Of Cornelius, List
extravagant piano playing and the self
consuming irony of Heine. the last Of the
Romantics. the first of the realists.
Heyse could not escape the color of his
times. He was born a Romantic. lived one.
will die one. His novel-ah. golden dream
Of youth when every man was a Philistine
except the chosen Sons of Light-his novel,
The Children of the World" stirred the
pulse of his generation. It is still read by
spinsters with tender souls in modest Dres-
den PENSIONS. To much later period is
the play Mary Of Magdala," but roman
ticism perches on its banners, the romantic
mock-antique Of Extraordinarily Mar
tyrs," the romanticis'n. with a flavor of
sentimentality superb ided. that informs
the sonorous and trumpeting phrases of
"Salammbo.' They all come from Cha
teaubriand, said the aged Jupiter Of weimar
about the period when scarlet waistcoats,
bombastic blank verse. flashing rapiers.
mysterious dominos, soft sighs, strange
oaths and dangerous enthusiasms broke
ont over the map of artistic apd litera ~
Paris like sublimated rash.
The two or three big poets and dramatists
like Robert Hamerling Leconte de Isle or
Edgar Quinet could never catch the ear of
the great public, though theirs is the original
cave Of historical. archaeological, poetic
and dramatic treasures which IL rifled by
men of lesser powers of invention. These
three. 10 select signal examples. have dealt
with classic themes in mastery manner
They hung no stray scarves of color, Haunted
no tawdry rhetorical banners upon the walls
of their massive structures. They built
solidly, enduringly Heyse has not. His
Mary Of Magdala" is Elective in STAGE
craft-and just here IL must not be for
gotten that an American stage mana ger
with modern notions has been busy with
the old-fashioned edfce-and his psy.
chology il rather shallow. To call il q
great play would be overshootng the marx
of the superlative. II Is an admirable act
ing play, especially in the American version
1t affords many opport unites for pict
uresque embellishments. and these oppor
tunities have been made much Of in tn,
Manhattan Theatre production.
Who was Mary of Ma sda'a? Edgar
Saltus tells us, but only Philip Hal,
could give us chapter and verse. and detail
the list Of histories. stories ana, poems
and plays that have clustered about tn
woman with the centuries Massene
wrote a species of secular oratorio on III
theme, and the lady has been painted lyinJ
at full length in innumcrablc d lsky forest
with weaving white arms. blond hair
blue robes in company with sinister skulls
hourgasscs and iron-bound melanchol,
books-perhap the iron-bound melanchol,
volumes Of the Mogi written of by Edga
Allan Poe
And she is resurgent in religion as in art
Her name, like Sappho's. endures a by
word through the ages; hostelries o
charity are named after her She seems {
have stemmed from noble soil She was
Syrian, rcd-haircd as is the Fiske; her father
Theudas, a astrap; her mother Eucharia
a descendant of kings. Thus the Satu
table Of Image
Early tristan gossip has it that Magdal
was the NAM Of her fathers castle an
that she derived her name because OF cit
located on the western coast of Lake Gen
neserath. The Greek term Mdgddid sign
fies a castclla,cd rock, Genneserath wa
known a. tine Coast Of Towers" pious
credulous scribes assert But comes a
agnostic named Smith. who declares in hi
Dictionary of the Bible" that the nam
OF Mdgddld does not really exist in tn
Bible. II is found in the received Gree
text, and in the authorized version g
Matthew Nv, 80, only; but the chief manu-
h., n