The sun., 1903-10-18

Forrest school. Yet-yet-the blood tingled,
tingled, the brain was on fire, the nerves
responded to the assault upon them. In
| those days; while now We meekly sit and
| bore ourselves imheasurably at perform
ances where colorless persons say colorless
things to one another In colorless phrases.
| ~ dolls are to be our ideal, better jump
the fence and go over to the real thing
I Babes in Toyland." which has more VI
vacity In one act than wilderness Of mod
ern monkey plays.
As have been in the mood militant the
past week, its dramatic productions piqued
| my interest, though not to the point Of
| critical eye closing. We had everything
from the miraculously romantic to daggers
and bier stems in the world OF mmicry.
Mr.. Mansfield at the new Lyric Theatre
revived "Old Heidelberg bourgeois
piece, utterly despised by critical author
tiles in Germany because Of it's ynmmering
sentiment, yet one that ia miles ahead Of
the average English play "Old Heidel-
berg" is an untrustworthy document IL
you cry for realism, and a poor bit of stage
carpentry II you are on the side of theatrical
art, II has no beginning. no middle, no
probabilit As literature il is muddied
water, while artistically it is the work of q
-muff' Yet Richard Mansfield the one
man who is framed to do big things on our
stage, is content to play this stun for an
entire season. l do not despair, because
in the actors own soul artistic despair has
long been an open secret. He has tired
Of strenuous Shakespeare and rests HIM
self with the molasses Of Meyer Forster,
1t is a molasses that attracts the flies-and
! 1t is easy work for man Of Mansfield's
brilliant parts. But In the secrecy OF his
dressing room he must at times ejaculate:
Herr Jessds' Was flr Elm 'S,ceinerei ist
unsere Lebeni He is quite correct.
Mr. Mansfield has public that still hopes
for cycle of Ibsen, Hauptmann, Strind-
berg--the latter Ia the coming hero of the
modern stage. And fear it Ia vain hope.
This actors power in the delineaton Of
highly individualized types. such as we
find in Ibsen and the newer men. would
be put to finer tests. Will he ever dare
these tests?
Mr. Sothern, at the Herald Square, has
harder nut to crack. Pinning his ia it'll
TO Justin Huntly Mccarthy. who is more
ane ,nose the son of his father, he has pro-
duced another work from that gentle
mans fatally facile pen. never cared
for III / We're King"-it always gave out
a hollow ring when raped by critical
knuckles. But, at least, it was a work
of art if compared to -The Proud Prince
There was something attractive in Valon
that caused in Mr.. McCarthy's muse gen.
la - 60 taI
by a stronger theme, tempted beyond
his MUSCLES he swings the story of Robert
the Bad in athlete fashion and is floored
in the contest. AS an exercise in mixed
methods this play is an admirable study.
First we have the epileptic. or leaping
and bounding style Of the Victor Hugo
school. Hunchbacked testers give utter
ance to strangulated sentences: II they
haven't daughters about to be violated
d Ia Rigoietto, they should have-the author
has simply transposed the victim to the
family Of the Kings headsman. Then we
get the mystic-miraculous with its Dres-
tissimo psychology. its sudden boreal
gusts, its marvellous conversions and re-
pulsive physical changes. Introduce a
thwarted love story, several biblical quota
tions, several attempted seductions, hand
full of bawds, an earnest, but stupid eccle-
sastic, topping all with the first act Of "Lo-
hengrin," and behold-"The Proud Prince,"
One is tempted to add-the proud
Mccarthy
Still there is stuff in the theme, or themes;
the author is not sufficiently versed in
dramatic counterpoint to handle them
polyphonically Fancy Sardou rubbing his
crafty hands and smiling his impenetrable
Merlin smile if the tr,Isty Moreau had put
such a story before him. Why he would
have carved it up into Trilogy with pro-
logue in Heaven and a Coda in the internal
regions, and would have sold the remnant to
Henry Irving for the American market.
Mr.. Mccarthy, who is a modest neophyte.
still on the threshold OF his career. is con-
tent to tell a plain tale from the Sicilian
hills and to tell it in the baldest, most pedes-
trian mariner. There is not moment when
you believe in the repentance Of the wicked
king-no, not if blue froth fringed his
grinning gums lin writing of Mccarthy
one easily succumbs to his mad Swim
burnian alliterationD; there is not mo-
ment when you believe in the innocence
OF PerpetuGlovely name evoking memories
Of noble saint--of her woodland airs and
graoes. She is dusty lay figure hauled
out from the shadowy recesses Of some
dramatic studio into the glare NJ the cal
cium, and the breath Of life is not in her.
But if you long for operate color, for
Meyerbeer without his grandeur. for stir
ring situations, there are enough In "The
Proud Prince" to satisfy a perfect glutton
in sensation. This is why it ia successful -
MIR. Mccarthy has, alas, written up TO his
public 1t needs a dealer in superlatves
to describe the eye piercing bolts Of light
ming, the scurry and rumble Of that fateful
thunderstorm; to dilate upon the languors
without lilies, Of the royal harem; to swell
with enthusiasm over the trial by arms in
the final scene. Mr.. Sothern's manager
has made production worthy OF him and
framed the Mccarthy canvas most sump-
tuousy.
As a spectacle it should be seen; As psy-
chology, deplored. Violence supplants
character, situation rules out of court
genuine vitality. The style il bombastic
the sentiment false As for the much
discussed second act, all one can say Is that
1t is 80 hopolejsly un-lifelike and theatrc
that it ceases to be offensive, Detroit
must have been surfeitng on Marie CoreIli
or Hall Cane. The conflict with cross
and sword is not new. 1t il an old operate
device. Nor il it's symbolism offensive.
Tho chief objection 10 be urged against il
IL its effect in execution. A small man
welding supposedly heavy iron cross