New-York tribune., 1907-05-10
LONDON DRAMA.
American Players and Toices- es-ScaIa
and Garrick NOUeltie8.
London. April "a.

| headed by trained artists like Mr.. Sothern and
Miss Marowe and when they paid the London
public the compliment of appearing in poetic
and classic drama and appealing to the highest
standard Of taste. There is rumbng bass
IN the chorus Of approving voices in the press.
This is the critic of The Daily Mall who
charges them with "a cold-b blooded massacre of
Hauptmann's lovely poem. THE Sunken Bell"
and reminds them extensively that English
audiences do not take kindly to such acts of
vandalism These petulent and ill-tempered
comments are made in a journal which is be-
coming notorious for its unfriendly and CEN
serious criticism of everything American. Other
critics frankly express gratitude to the American
company for producing a highly imaginative
| and poetic work. which no London manager has
dared 10 handle. although it has been accepted
for decade in Germany as a didactic and
fairy fantasy of unrivaIed beauty. Equally
generous is the appreciation of the scenery in
Cidental music. stage management and acting
which are described making up an interpre-
tation distinguished by intelligence, culture and
taste. When Miss Rehan used TO to Eng
land years ago with Mr.. Dalys company COM
pliments like these were heard about the high
standards of American taste If tributes to
American actors have become less generous. 1t
| has beer because they have appeared in fimsy
comedies and vulgar meodramas They have
not honored London by playing In the best
dramas which they have produced at home with
the honorable ambition of raising the standards
OF public taste
There is another tribute from a sympathetic
critic which it gives me unalloyed pleasure to
quote In The Daily Chronicles notice of the
first night is the candid admission that the
verse was spoken with precision. a roundness
and crspness that would put many English
actors TO shame. Never once throughout the
whole evening adds the critic did one hear in
principal part trace of Yankee twang, or
draWi, or vulgarity of speech. 1t is to be
doubted, indeed if one did not hear purer Eng
lish at the Waldorf than one does in the ma
jority of West End theatres-the English that
went over to America in the Mayfower and
! has curiously stayed there" If Mr.. Sothern and
Miss Marlowe do not obtain the recognition and
support which they deserve for producing so
poetic a work Hauptmann's and four of
Shakespeare's plays. with Jeanne dare and
When Knighthood Was IN Flower" they have
earned the gratitude of Americans for calling
out that comment. The stock idea among Lon
don managers is that audiences enjoy travesties
and Caricatures of American manners Actors
when American. are encouraged to talk through
their noses in a high key and to be as vulgar
as possible. When English actors are cast for
American parts they are expected TO exaggerate
them grotesquely. for the amusement Of gall
ieries and stalls. The American heiress Shrek
ing in nasal tones, advertising her fathers mill
ions with ostentatious yulgarity. and elbowng
her way into the company OF dukes and earls
with strenuous energy, is a familiar stage figure
Mrs. Humphry Ward did something to impair
the force Of this stage tradition when she re-
vealed Lucy Foster in Eleanor as a quiet re-
served, self-restrained American girl. with a
low. melodious voice but. as her play had only
a few performances. ii has not altered the the
atrical convention THE Daily Chronicles
critic in his outspoken praise Of tho voices and
undefled English OF the American players at
the Waldorf. makes reparation for scores Of
libels and travesties. II is n revelation that
ought not 10 surprise London theatregoerq who
remember the voices Of such artists as Edwin
Booth, Joseph jefferson. Mary Anderson Ada
Rehan, William Gillette, William Collier Fay
Davis and scores Of other American players.
Outbreaks like that Of The Daily Mail" come
with little grace when German criticism Of Mr.
Trees performances in Berlin has been hotly
resented by his partsans. The English players
were well received by the court and by audi
ences, and their short engagement was highly
successful; but the critics blurted out a good
deal Of superhuous truth about the current meth
ods of embroidering and modernzing Shakes
peare. English critics have never concealed
their own preference for Mr. Tree in crude nelo-
drama like The Red Lamp" or in character
studies Ike Colonel Newcome. In which he Is
clearly at his best, and actor really great.
II cannot be denied however that since Sir
Henry Irving's death he has been the leading
exponent, at least stage manager. OF
Shakespeare in London. and that he has Iabored
arduousy and increasingly to popularize the
classic dramas Of English literature. When he
took his company Berlin he repeated not his
best individual approximations in melodrama.
but his stage productions of Shakespeare That
was a compliment to German taste similar to
the tribute which Mr.. Sothern and Miss Mar
lowe have paid TO England in revisting their
ancestral home. 1t acknowledged by some
of the Berlin critics IN structures as coarse and
unmannerly as The Daily Nails TRADE on
cold -blooded massacre" and vandalism
It would be most unjust 10 measure English
taste by the melodrama THE Judgment OF
Pharaoh" which was received with marked en-
thusiasm by the audience at the Scala after tho
final fall of the curtain. It the work of
Mr.. Alfred c. Glamour, who gave Miss
Ellen Terry fine part in The Amber Heart"
but has allowed his ambitions a playwright
to fall TO the level OF Iurid stage writing like
Mr.. Wilson Barrett's in The Sign of the Cross"
1t was enacted at the most beautiful theatre ir
London, on the site of the triumphs of the Ban
crofts: and ii staged with sumptuous splen-
dor and exceptional realism and recited with
poetic sonOrousness. The motive apparently
the conflict between religious ideas of the Phar-
aohs and the Hebrews: and hardly anything
was lacking to make It realistic variety per-
formance. Certainly there were acrobats, con-
tortionists, Oriental dancers. live camels and
trained dogs made up artistically as lions with
a most intelligent and discriminating scent.
which enabled them to pass by the Hebrew
tl,a