The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-12-02
Cbe Cbeatre$
Montgomery Theatre-ssNlaebeth.' 7

A fair sized audience composed al-
 most entirely of Montgomery lovers of l the classic saw the presentation of
 Macbeth" by John Grffith.
 The tendency of the stage at the
 present time Is not toward shakes-
 peare. Even those in whose regard
 the Bard of Avon is second to none
 admit it,--ruefully perhaps--but Atill
 they admit 1t. Now and then, New
 York papers and theatrical magazines
 print columns of proposed great
 Shakespearan revivals, and now and
 then such stars as E. H. Southern,
 Julia Marlowe, Forbes Robinson. Viola
 Allen. Mir Mansfield and even genial
 Nat Goodwin have taken tries at
 Shakespeare to satisfy their ambition. These productions are always staged
 with a magnificence that would open | wide the eyes of the lamentable Booth
 and Barrett and would cause Faust
 to glory in the progress of the mod
 erns. Garrick and Burbank would con- | slider these productions beyond the
 powers of mortal man. And yet, the bills never announce that Miss AL
 lens Twelfth Night" nor Mir. Mans fields Richard IT," ran 800 nights on Broadway. And invariably these | stars unable to resist the potent in- fluence of the box once, arc com pelled to give up their ideal of att t,.ining immortal fame by speaking the lines of the Elisabethian play wright.
 Then to Mir. Grfith, all credit should bo due He has played the legitimate for ten years amid both good and bad
 fortune. Mir. has Griffith persevered and the good audience which saw Macbeth last night was a distinct compliment, considering that his play was sand wiched in between two recent New York hits.
 To the credit of the audience be 1t said that no actor perhaps ever re- ceived closer attention than did MT.
 Grfith. The audience had not assem-
 bled to see Mir. Grfith. The audience had assembled to hear the lines of
 ent. who had seen the masters in the | play. who saw MT. Grfith, merely
 through a sense of loyalty to Shakes
 peare and to encourage others to do the samA | The audience was asreeably sur-.
 prised. There were some few present
 who remembered the star as a young
 member in the support of M. Booth
 and In later days. who had toured the
 South with Mir. Keene, and they re. membered that he had ability. I
 Macbeth. His gigantic proportions. his | remarkable muscular development, his
 erect carriage, are all in keeping with the ideals of the. ambitious Highland thanic. He has a remarkable voice. a
 voice, that either, in whisper or in the
 lurid oratory of the lines, reaches
 every section of the house.
 His facial expression is convincing ] and he has learned many effective bits Inf H,tSt ts,aC A rAat tCo | Shakespearian actors. The Macbeth Of last night Is by no means an inferior reader and in the last act, the famous "sene and yellow leaf" soliloquy was | deserving of the liberal applause it re- ceived. There Is one drawback, how ever, to the portrayal of Glamis, Caw- dor and King and in fact to the entire production. The tenseness of the por- trayal never lapses and there are pe-
 riods, when this tenseness palls on one. It Is not in keeping with the
 otherwise realistic performance for the
 actor never to lapse from the highest pitch of emotionalism. This criticism is true only as to the less important line, for during the climaxes MT. Grif- filth mounted almost to the sublime. In Miss Louise Ripley, the company has a Lady Macbeth of unusual excel- lence. Like Mir. Griffith, she is for tunate in her physical qualincations I for the part. Miss Ripley is a queenly brunette and never can one disassociate her l from the relentlessly ambitious wife | of the naturally great hearted Mac
 beth. In her emotional lines. Miss
 Ripley carries her audience with her.
 Her collapse at the end of the ban 1 quet scene and the "out, out. damned
 spot" soliloquy were rendered with
 telling elocutionary powers. But. like
 Mir. Griffith. she never relapses to any
 thing like a normal speech and at
 times the idea is forced on one that | she is not natural. MT. Edward P. Sullivan, who played Macduff Is young actor of promise.
 The rest of the company was evenly | balanced.
 The costumes and stage settings | were adequate
 l Dustin Farnum In The Virginian" ] A~-l.