The San Francisco call., 1905-01-01

Well" Miss Bates argued. cutting
little Sits in the air with her riding
whip that's up to the conventions of
the drama. The original story is all
about Samurai hercics, but the Ameri-
can public is rot going to stand for
that kind of drama. They've got to
have the love interest. And there you
are Immediately UP against it. Love,
as we understand 1t. is unknown In
Japan. Passion there is, of course, as
the race is peTpetuatcd. But you have
to begin by ringing in the anachronis-
tic love interest"
You go on, | continued, by intro
ducing a princess, hedged in by the
most exacting ceremonial III the world,
refusing a suitor proposed to her by
her father. ard at the same time ac-
knowledging her love for a man that
she has seen but once.'
she is the darling of the gods will
full, motherless. Spoiled" Miss Bates
contended without conviction. "Of
course the red book of American man
ners is flinnsy eXcuse-still, it is pos
sible. You know how strange the truth
IS OF course. again, ii is not probable
but then what plays are probable,
only Ibsens? And then, as Willie
Winter says, you're in the dissecting
room"
How about the Princess Yo Sans in
terview with the geisha,?'
tOh, that, of course. is dragged in"
Miss Bates put it. But it serves very
we'll to illustrate her character
A
wholly charming; if she isn't all that
a Princess OF Japan should be- And 1
wouldn't have missed the play itself
for much The pictures
Yes. sir Miss Bates cried, her
whole big heart in her eyes. aren't
they beautiful? They may well call
Belasco the wizard Oh, and the lit
tie touches all through the play Do
you remember that scene where Yo
San turns her obi to the front, the
sign of the geisha? Any other man
but Belaseo would have given her
pages to say to Yakkuri. He does just
that. And every night it feels big to
me. And do you remember the ban
quet scene? I bow to Mr.. Belasco at
every stage of the game but there are
two things for which he could abso-
lutely walk over me, one that banquet
soene-twelve tables set. carp served
and eaten with chopsticks, pipes
smoked, stage cleared, all in no time"
And the other2'
The scene where Mime Butterfly
stands watching for her husband at
the window of her shoii for seven and
a half eternal moments not one word
spoken: not a movement made-why,
it's the most daring thing ever done
on the stage."
And you're going to do it here, this
week, i said: "and your own play"
My own play?" she quer;ed, opening
her eyes until the blue whites of them
grew into saucers.
Its advertised / informed her.
well, Mr.. has large sized
she broke off, laughing, and so / can't
do the Tanning of the Shrew. .
$50" I said, and that was on the
tapis?"
Just" she laughed, even blushed
little, 1.-The Katharine and Petruchio
scenes, William Winters arrangement
you know. Please believe that it is
creed with me that there is only one
Katharine, Ada Rehan; only, / like to
try. And there's only one Juliet. Julia
NARROW, adorable-and only one Be-
atrice, too, Ellen Terry
We went back TO Belasco then and
Miss Bates said he reminded her of
once-upon-a time high school principal
of hers, A. T. Wynne, who said to her
one day: my child, knowledge is not
knowing a thing; it's knowing where
to get it,
That's what Belasco knows, where
to get everything" Miss Bates added.
IKE had a two-sword man to drill the
samurai in the play. He had Sada
Yacco's dresser to dress the women.
He had Veto, the Japanese artist to
look after the pictures Every detail
in them is correct. Not one person
that Belasco works"
She told us afterward something of
the wizards methods with his players,
of her first efforts with the Yo San
part; how she had gone with a care
fully prepared conception of the role
to her maestro: and how he had said:
That's fine; that's how Blanche
Bates would do there; now do it as
a Japanese girl would do"
"Of course" the actress pouted de-
"I went home and cried all
night. But next day, with the little
here and there things he had said, it
seemed to come to me- You believe
you can do anything Mr.. Belasco says
you can. I know I should jump off
that bridge yonder if he told me to-
Then we sauntered off to the Meal
lister street cars and got somehow to
talking of Mary Shaw, "the most won
derful woman I have ever met" Miss
Bates cried. You should see her some
times at the Twelfth Night Club" she
went on. -Four or five of us would be
women 1t would natur-
ally begin with personalities-but In
while some question of literature or the
drama would come up and, by jingo"