The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-10-06

| thinner from her recent illness. but losing
 none of her old charm, is appearing at | Belasco in a series of revivals, "Adria" l opening the season, and followed by 'Du-
 Barry and "Zaza." Mrs Carter's con- | tinued triumphs, despite the vogue of | Shaw. which is pre-eminent. serves to
 call attention to the really serious work
 of one of Americas greatest artists and
 her conscientious determination to pre-
 sent plays that bring out what the old
 school of actors would glory in, heavy
 dramatic climaxes and much emotional
 acting.
 Mrs. Carter Is. however one of those
 women dependent to a great extent upon the brilliant beauty of stage settings. but this dependence seems to be wholly edu- cationaI, sense of the fitness of things, and in her sumptuous revivals the vivid ness of her environments seems part of herself, and not purely stage effects. In 'Adrla" there is such a wealth of | color that it is quite distracting to the uninitiated and If Mrs. Carter was less powerful perhaps the audience would lose | itself in natural yielding to those won | derful interiors, which endanger art, or rather which make it subservient to the | splendor of a blue and gold canopy or white p1umed fan. Intense and passionate plays like "Adra' are sufficiently ab- sorbing as to make stage settings of sec ondary interest, and yet when the most sumptuous and the most sensual of courts is reproduced the audience may be par doned if, during one of Mrs. Carters sensational scenes the attention becomes centered in a shower of pink rose leaves fiuttering at her feet rather than in the conflicting emotions of a womans heart.
 In scenes between Adria and Kaeso, when Mrs. Carter rises to magnificent heights, there are so many clements to distract. so much that attracts the eye, that it Is with difficulty that the mind becomes finally concentrated in the great drama being worked out, and the con fused impressions are apt to reNlain un- less through a great deal of will power you may remember some of the lines in the play.
 Mrs. Carter. in her greatest scene, sits on a wonderful throne, canopied in blue
 
 Jared doorway. her gown a marvel, and all about her the splendor of a pleasure loving court. There are long and pill Jared aisles. through which her slaves enter, interiors of pale tinted marble, and rich mosiacs and carvings. and she is borne in one of those luxurious chairs over which bronze colored slaves wave huge and feathered fans. She is blazing in jewels and after time she walks to her throne and ascends some marble steps, and there under a canopy that ex- tends nearly the whole length of the stage she sends for Kaeso.
 It is in such settings that Mrs Carter plays season after season and if you go often to see her the gold and the jew els and the slaves and the feather fans get to be part of her own personality. and after this you begin to see her fine intelligence and her scholarly nterpre- tations. But she is more or less depend ent upon what MT. Belasco does in the way of giving her these unusual back grounds and in the selection of those plays that admit of sumptuous and riot ous color. And the audience is becoming more or less dependent upon. It. caring less for the real work of the men and different to the real mission of the drama They like the canopy and the slaves and the feather fans. just because the mana gers persist in having them. People are 1 becoming educated in a way that means more stage settings and jeweled things, and yet the managers blame the people for all this excessive display on the stage, when 1t was the managers who
 initiated this present-day movement. Mrs Carter is one of the idols of New York. She is so entirely individual that her work is distinctive and her plays wholly different from any thing that Is attempted at any of the theatres. In Adria, as every one knows, she Is blind | through two acts, and because of this blindness her sister ascends the throne that rightfully belongs to Adria and she herself is deceived into a marriage with one of the fools about the court In her pitiful blindness Adria believes that she has been welded to Kaeso, whom she loves. and when the awakening comes, she staggers blindly. madly through a l | let rob falling the. whole length of the stairs and Adria white-robed gropes | about in the darkness. It Is a wonderful scene, Adra, blind, helpless. maddened with the thought of the awful wrong that she has suffered and praying to the statue of the dead king, her father, for | help. Following Adr'a's prayer in tho darkness. is crashing of the clements | and a blinding flash that miraculously restores. her sight. and the dawn finds | her dazed and wondering at the light. | The creature whom she has married and of whose very name she is In ignorance, | has been killed in the flash and Adria raises his dead body and sees for the | first time the stupid fool whose embraces she was forced to endure in her blindness | The audience waits for her to shriek but she is too awed and deadened for words. She lets the dead body of this painted creature fall suddenly where 1t lies at | her feet. and then sne rennains perfectly still. and lets the audience do the shud- | dering Then she whispers something uninteligibe, something that Is scarcely | heard and the curtain falls.
 woman of Adria's temperament, and who has been blind and suffered un- speakable things because of this blind ness. might be expected to avenge these