The San Francisco call., 1905-06-18

George Bernard Shaw himself, with his.
sorrowful apostle face. does not more
curiously differ from his writings than
The gentle William Winter. was Of the
audience that heard Mr.. Winter on Thurs
day afternoon, and afterward privileged
audience Of one at Nj. Winters hotel l
have heard invective before. arraignment
more or less fo-ceful Of sins against the
public good; I have never before heard
iHvective so biting. arraignment so bit
ter and forceful as I heard on Thursday
afternoon from the dean Of American
critics in his aTraignment Of the existent
theatrical abuses. Mr.. Winter looks so
different Gentlest Of faces he has, deli
cate, lean ivory pale under the porcelain
Rhiteness Of his fine hair. A gently
dropping mustache shades a gentle mouth,
genLeness lights the eyes, still brightly
blue under the frosty eyebrows, and Mr..
Winter. slim. frsil. Yet erect as reed
despite his seventy-something years,
looks down upon nothing, 1 imagine.
taller than five feet two or three.
Few men Of seventy-something could
have delivered an address ike The The
ater and the Public" perhaps none other
than Mr. Winter could have written it.
Possibly an hour and half or more Of
the theater and its ways, CT its ideals,
OF its duties. its degradauons. its poetry.
couched in English Of as startling vigor
ss il was distinguished in refinement and
clarity and beauty. Mr.. Winter gave
Us. It is by the way, but the exquisite
delivery of the lecturer, the linpid purity
Of his pronunciation. might well serve as
models 10 the actor folk Of whom he has
spent ffty-five long years in writing. 1t
IS again by the way, but the dean OF
American critics was ittingly and charm
tncly introduced to his audience by Mr..
Peter Robertson, local dean Of the craft.
who is next in the American succession
70 Nj Winter.
Possibly not one among the very rep
ressntative audience that greeted Mr..
Winter. save Mrs. Fiske, with her mis-
chievous eyes alight. knew what was
coming. Here most Of US know the
critic through his Wanderers
through the quiet charm Of Gray Days
and Gold" through The Life and Art
Of Edwin Booth" It was not this Win
Ter 10 whom we listened the other day.
II was 10 a Winter that made one gasp.
thrill and think down deep and deep
again, even while under the spell Of his
music.
OA-G nay lIN G. &C Win NAAc
lecturer. It is the young who will most
vitally agree and disagree. At once
sternly conservative and as gay a
young rebel as ever breathed, Mr.. Win
ter carries double standard Shaw as
q "fourth-rate imitator of w. S Gill
bert" with an unclean infusion Of him.
self is hardly the light in which that
popular image breaker just now ap
pears 70 the younger among us We
still cry for Ibsen. though possibly
little weary Of the gloom. Pinero.
wickedly or not, we laugh with in a
Gay Lord Quex'' mood. To Sudermann.
so far as the ~unhOly and unhealthy"
'Magda" goes, IL - TO be feared we
give whole-hearted admiration. For
these; for D'Annunzio and for his priest
ess Duse; for Maeterlinck, with his
"talkative flies upon a gossiping door
or some such; for Sardou Through
Bern hardt, who has devoted her er-
ratio genius to the exposition of the
bestiaI appetites and passions of the
most loathsome types Of womankind'D ;
for Oscar Wilde, Mr. Winter expresses
q scathing and picturesque contempt
CLYDE Fitch. as the maker of the
tailor-made and corner grocery drama, 3"
was apparently cast to the entire
amusement If not content of the audi
ence.
Less amusement was manifested when
Mr. Winter turned his attention to the
public. II is the public, in its deadly
lsissez-faire, in its base demands,
that IS at the bottom of the corruption
of the stage. as ii is the inspiration Of
that which is noble and beautiful, said
the lecturer. Pure society, pure stage"
That the stage is frequently hospital or
madhouse," the shrine of a Duse-a con
sunmate type Of charnel-house affecta-
ton. and deadly Photographic miscalled
natural methods" of the 'voluptuous and
mischievous pageantry Of Black
Crook" Of the flood Of tainted, half
deodorized French dramas" Of the fool
rnelodrama in which an actual woman
swins in actual water and actual horses
run TO an actual fire almost as fast as
they run in the street." the public has
only itself in the last issue TO thank. Ac-
completes in first degree are the press
an0 the syndicate
Everything is made the subject of jest,
the lecturer svowed. Seriousness is no
where. Refinement is banished and the