The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-12-28
ACTRESSES AND AGES.

One sometimes sees, not Ottens an
 elderly actress playing the part of a
 girl. The sight is distressing. and mars
 any illusion that the play may have power to create. But, at any rate one
 has the solace of knowing that the l actress is doing her best, and is failing only because she is uneyenly match ed in the duel with Nature. One has not this solace when one sees, as one | so often does see, a young actress play ing the part of an old or middle-aged
 woman. It is as easy to simulate as
 it is difficult 10 simulate youth Crow s feet and hollows. though they cannot
 be painted out, can be painted in. In- firmity of movements pr mature deliberation of movement, can be cas- 1 fly assumed by youth, though youths agility can only be mOcked by the efforts of cid And youths 'inimitable voice can easily be stoned to notes , other than its own. Yet, simple trough these tricks are. young actresses are never seen playing them. Cast for elderly parts they will go far as to
 powder their hair la Marquise. Thus far and no further Their faces must AAOI AOlICA LIlS utOplEi anu ll4iElC>s'l4C'eS of youth. And the result is a pretty
 picture of eighteenth century young womanhOod, and needs but a "mouche
 on chin and cheek to consummate the illusion. A very living picture. too living with all the blithe intensity of
 youth. moving with kittenish grace and
 freedom, and sparkling. and mincing.
 and coquetting, ever so prettily. and
 melodious with notes of laughter yet
 more silvery than theafore said cciffure.
 IL seems rather shurlish to cavil at
 thing so pleasant in itself. But one has
 to judge it in relation to what it was
 intended to be by the author of the
 play which it adorns, and in relation
 to the exact dramatic impression which
 it ought to make on us. And by such
 standards one is bound to deem it
 amiss.
 l noted two strong instances of it
 lately, in a very successful play which,
 in deference to the two ladies who sup
 piled the instances, will not particu-
 larize. One of these two had 10 imper-
 senate an old maid. whose heart of
 gold was obscurad by a very sharp
 tongue. In the course of the paly, she
 was more than once referred to as
 that old harridan." Yet, facially, she
 was the most winning of most juvenile
 ladies from the court of Le Roi Soleil
 In voice, too, and in movement, and in
 everything but the rude thing she had
 to say, she was signally and 'unremit-
 tingly seductive. Thus these rude
 things were utterly aueered in their
 value" Said by an elderly woman,
 they would have seemed a pardonable form of eccentricity, as intended by the
 author. Said by q very young and pretty woman. they were qui;e unpar- donable insults. for which this very young and pretty woman would any where have been excluded from decent society. Nor was this the sole mis- chief. The whole reason for the old maids presence in the play was that she was to act as chaperon to a young man and woman who might otherwise have ben compromised in the eyes of an audience ever jealous for the chas- tity of heroes and heroines. But, as she appeared to be practically coeval of the heroine, he chaperonage lost its obvious force; and only by a hard ef- 1 fort of the imagination, made with shut eyes, could the audience take he rat her proper value. The other instance was supplied by a lady who inperson- 1 ated a married woman with grown up daughter. For some time after the 1 curtain rose, was under the impress sion that the mother and daughter were sisters; and when I did, at length, grasp the relationship, I had to exer- else the greatest care not to let it slip | from me. Of course, one has seen | sometimes in real life of mother and daughter wno in the distance, and at | a .cursory glance, might pass for sisters. But such misunderstanding can be contrived only through great pains talk en by the mother. And the mother in this play was simple admirable crea- ture, with no jealousy at all of her daughters's youth. Thus even a mo- mentary misunderstanding would have been a pity. How much more a pity, a misunderstanding that had to be guarded against throughout the whole course of the play.-London Saturday Review.