The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-25

begun as q romantic drama he ended as a
poetic study OF the struggle for freedom oil
mind and conscience. How completely his
end forgot his beginning IL evident in many
particulars, of which one OF the more
briefly quotable must here suffice. In the
second act the exigenoies Of the plot re-
quire that Kdrlos shall be ignorant OF Elisa
beth's handwriting, and he says to the page;
Nooh hab' ioh NIGHTS Won ihrer Hand gelesen,
But in the fourth act, again in obedienceto
the exigencies OF the plot, it appears that
before the opening of the play she had
written him q letter which he has ever since
kept next his heart:
Won diesem Brief zu %trennen, fallt mir schwer.
Alike in the scale on which it is con-
structed, in its subject matter, in its mech
anism, and as having two heroes, Don
Karlos" is two plays. 1t is the great n
only Siamese Twins Of the drama.
That It still holds the German stage is a
monument both TO the majesty OF Teutonic
culture and to its ineptitude. As a work OF
art It has formidability IL not form. Though
never a masterpiece in ny kind, it ia, and
must always remain, a historic landmark
OF no mean proportions.
Written at the close OF the seventeenth
century, it performed some such service
in the Acknowledgement OF the modern
intellect as our American Revolution per-
formed in political Acknowledgement. 1t is
lust and fitting that It should not be for
gotten, in Germany or in any land. But
its presentation in the theatre can in no
way be given the character of an artistic
festival. At best it ia a rite, and a rite
of the utmost solemnity. 1t is true that
in Germany art is what Harry b. Smith
once called musical o~omedy-a very serious
matter; but such seriousness is az little
fitting to one genre as to the other. By
two tests you may recognize the man Of deep
and true cultivation. One is that he knows
the joy OF truth and beauty even in it's
austerest and most tragic forms. The other
is that he knows when he 10 bored.
We owe it to the celebrity with which
as a nation we leap from ldngpeiliokeit
that Mr.. Mansfield's version is no longer
than 1t ia; but this contamination has
not been achieved without damage to the
play az a ritual. Among the passages
to be sacrificed ia the long and portentous
colloquy between the King and Posd-the
very heart of the inspiration of the con-
Guiding portion of the play. What appears
at thu New Amsterdam is little more
that the Hispano-Teutonic Hamlet in all
its lameness and futility.
The spirit in which it was received at the
New Amsterdam was appropriately SOL
emn, if not appropriately ritual. Only
once did the audience rise to the play n
the actor-for about five minutes at the
end Of the fourth act. when kurlos con-
fronted Philip and Aird over the body
of the murdered Posd. And then the TIRE
umph was histrionic rather than dramatic.
for thanks to the pruning shears it was
by no means evident who Posa was, and
for what and in what name he had sac
rihced his life.
or Mr.. Mansfield's performance those
who most warmly admire his great genius
will, | think, speak with the most regret.
The q Of Prince Kdrlos Ia %. In Germany
the part Is ~relegated to youthful actors Of
promise: and it ia to this fact, quite as much
as to it's solemnity, that the play owes its
vogue. Kdrios ia the part in which the
aspirant makes his debut in the various pro-
vincial theatres ais pdst-the hoop through
which he leaps TO general recognition.
Now, Mr.. Mansfield has frankly told us
that he has reached his prime-in fact, that
at the end Of three years he is to retire.
That his imagination and his vital forces
are still adequate TO the portrayal of young
manhood il not for a moment to be doubted.
Quite recently he played Karl Heinrich in
Alt Heidelberg" with great exuberance
and much charm. His hdrlos is a creation
OF the same order. AS he made the first
success of his youth as the senile and de-
crepit hero OF "A Partisan Romance" 80
now he shines in the portrayal OF roman
tic and ingenious adolescence; but in
both parts what triumphs IL not so much
spontaneous genius as ~virtuosity.
Mere yo%uthfulnesa. however, is not enough
for the portrayal of kdrlos. The part also
claims an instructive, romantic fervor.
a lyric passion such as Romeo'S, and this
has never been Mansfeld's long suit. In
physique as by temperament he is best
adapted to the portrayal Of mature and
masculine acknowledgement in which i'm
agination is not merely passional, but fused
with intellect. The very keynote Of ksF63ss
character, moreover, is futile 'vaeifstion,
while Mansfield is above all an 1enbodi-
ment of decision and power. 1t is true that
he COnCelNPS tne tlluIdCltl WIFI a teItdlu
artistic integrity, infusing into it an erratio
and picturesque gloom, a half suppressed
half dynamic intensity of n~erves-which
gives rare scope to the Mansfield name
isns. His mood in Kdrlos is a variant OF
his mood il Brutus, and suggests incipient
degeneracy here as it there suggested in
cipient insanity. But this is even less the
KdrLos of Schiller than that was the Brntus
of Shakespeare. Both interpretations were
interesting, as is everything Mr.. Mansfield
does; but Kdrlos certainly will not enhance
his reputation.
The Greater Love- is the reductio dd
dbsurdum of John Tannerism. The hero
Of Man and Superman' talks about art so
hard and is so determined to live for his
career, that you suspect him Of spelling both
words with primer capitals. But in the
end, it may be observed, when no is cap
tured by the never womanly, his fate is
not tragic, nor ever heroic, but comical.
Johann Chrysostom Wolipang Theophilas
Mozart, the hero OF Ivy Ashton Roots
little play, loves and is beloved by a pa
thetico-romantic h%eroine-a great singer,
La Mdndini, who never occurred in the
real life Of Mozart, but who seems cut out
L.. not,,ra m he his souls complement