The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-09-14
LANDING THE THEATRES.
BY ALoNzo NEWCOMER.
Wanda de Boncza, Familiar Figure in the Gay sG Capital of France Passes from the Stage SG

who envied her broke down on seeing the alteration that had taken place, and implored pardon for all the unlSindnesses she had committed towards her. The poor, dying beauty's life had been the merest vanishing picture.
 
 Wanda de Boncza studied for the stage under Worms at the Conservat toire. Her professor comforted her trembling par ents by promising her a splendid career. She soon became the show pupil, won a first prize in comedy, entered the Odeon, where she excited the enthusiasm of the youth of the Quartier Latin by her strange and-as it seemed to them-fatal beauty. We all like in youth beings of dark imaginings. She looked such a being and yet had wis comica. The con trast between her intensely expressive black eyes and the cross-current of com icality rendered her most attractive. There was something of Rachel in her, but with beauty, and something too, of Mile. Schneider. Her by-play was al- ways faultless, and she had the instinct of the tableau vivant. She had not long been at the Odeon when she received an offer from the Francais, where she went on from one br.---anl success to another She came out there in that light brilliant and highly dramatic thing, "On ne bad inc pas avee rAmour" and then success fully in "Othello," "Adrienne Lecouv- reur," "Struensee,' 'Alkests,' "LEt- rangere" dn which she eclipsed Sarah BernhardD, and the Marquis de Priola." As the Marquise in that play she was at her best. Her morbidezza, her black eyes, her amber complexion and raven hair, her elegant figure, and her air of supreme ton carried away the public She might. it was said, have passed for the original of one of Henner's morbid society beauties.
 Wanda Boncza, the daughter of Polish parents, and born at Batignolles, short ened long Sclavonian, and by no means euphonious, name into the one she bore on entering the theatrical world When quite young her photo won a second beauty-prize at 1 forget what competi- tive exhibition. The hepatic complexion did not show in the sun picture any more than more recently behind the footlights. One saw that she had a face of a pure oval the well shaped and proportioned features that always are found with the oval contour, hair the color of the ravens wing and naturally curly, and a pair of magnificent eyes. The contour, the mouth, the nose, rather improved as time went on, and the eyes took 8 more in-
 
 gently large and deeply dark. l some- times thought she must have been Polish gipsy. But the lips wanted touch of paint One might have thought that dark blood showed through them. She had latterly the same complexion of Rodica and Doodica, the Mysore Siam csc" twins, and immense melancholy exes like theirs As an actress she had more instinct than cleverness. On the stage liar very graceful figure carried away the house the moment she appeared Of melancholy turn and subject to the blues" she could not do without excite ment She found it on the stage, but in a greater degree on the race course, and longed to have, like Mile. Marsy, a rac- ing stud of her own, and to become the owner of the great racing establishment created by the late M Albert Menier in the Department of the Disc. The hope of soon being elected a member of the Francais Company also gave zest to life during the last year or so. The small ness of her theatrical income did not debar her from driving daily in the Bois in an elegantly appointed brougham lined with white satin. Her idea in choosing that lining was to convey to her admirers the idea of a black pearl lying in white satin case It went hard Wltn some or the lduleS or the EranCaiS to accept her as a societaire. But as she drew a gilded public on subscription ev- enings, they felt they must be resigned. Naturally the cause which produced the dark complexion affected character and temper. She had her gay, her joyous hours, but generally followed by depres- sion and nerves. An actress of her idio- syncrasies was not always easy to get on with.
 MT. John Drew is presenting 'The Mummy and the Running Bird'' at the Empire; the Rogers Brothers in liar vard'' Is at the Knickerbocker Sally in Our Alley" at the Broadway Mir. Jeffer- son de Angeles in "The Emerald Isle' at the Herald Square. 'The New Clown at the Garrick, Miss Alice Fischer in Mrs Jack at Wallack's, Soldiers of Fortune at the Savoy. "King High Ball'' at the New York, "The Chinese Honey- moon' at the Casino and Robert Elm nett at the Fourteenth Street At the Grand Opera House this week "The Fa- tai Wedding will be the play. with little Cora Quintin, child actress, as a spe- cial feature. Jane Eyre will be pre- sented by the stock company at the Mur- Hil1 with