The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-05-07
ADJUSTMENTS

4 shall rise. with Observation-Disclosures
fate-shail fall"
The life story of Du Barry, milliner.
kings fayorite, stricken woman on her
way to the guillotine. These eleven
words, uttered by herself at the close
Of long speech ia the second act. fur
nish the axis on which the play re-
wolves.
A girl possessing all the physical charms
that eighteenth century writers accord to
the Countess Du Barry, who could still
measure up to ali the requirements in
elemental passion that are written into
the Belasco play. would not be a girl
at ali. She would be an embodied mir
acle. And to the writer the most won
derful feature of Mrs. Carriers art is
that. after she has spoken only a few
of her lines. the listener fOrgets that she
does not possess all the physical attri-
butes of the character.
The pictures are so vivid that they
burn themselves into the memory. the
agony so intense that it grips the heart.
Aside from the short first act. which is
really sort of prologue. there are few
light lines in ''Du Barry" The tone. al
most from the moment the little miliiner
enters the service of COmte Jean Du
Barry. gambler, is sombre, the tragedy
imminent.
The part of Du Barry is most exact
ing. 1t requires the presence of the star
upon the stage nearly all the time. AL
ways the audience is under the spell
of the marveiously sweet voice. the voice
that pleads. that caFesses, that storms
and SObS and caiOlPS and threatens but
that never once loses its sweetness. Then,
too, is the magnetism of the woman. the
magnetism that reaches out, yIlDathy-
compelling, and weaves about hearts
which thrOb humanity q spell that is not
broken until the final curtain falls.
Mrs Leslie Carter has been called ''an
actress made to order She entered the
theatrical profession under the tutel-
age of the greatest stage director Of his
David Ha1n -I,rr4
did not make an actress of Mrs. Car
ter. He taught her tricks of expression.
of enunciatiOn, how to walk upon a
stage and how to leave Il. and many
other things that go to mark the line of
demarcatiOn between the clever amateur
and the finished professional But no
man could have given this woman her
voice, her magnetism, the touch that
plays upon the emotions with all the
sureness Of violin virtuoso upon his
strings.
The tense silence that accompanied the
strongly emotional passages in the play
was in itself a splendid tribute TO the
woman's art. Last nights audience. com
posed though it was of veteran playgoers
who are not easily stirred. seemed to for
get that it was listening to the life story
of a woman whose head fell into q saw
dust-lined basket nearly a century and q
quarter ago. They seemed TO think they
were witnesses of q tremendous tragedy,
in which real people. rot stage puppets,
time when the always pitiful figure of
Du Barry was not the dominating figure.
And this. gentlefolk is art.
The play 'Du Barry Is a series of in
eidents. deftly dovetailed. in the written
history of the famous French courtesan.
Due allowance must be made for dra-
matte license. but as a whole the play is
a fair picture OF life at the court of
Louis XIV and the turbulent times that
followed in the years between his death
and the execution Of his successor. Louis
XVI "Du Barry opens with scene
in the milliner's shop in the Rue st.
Honore. This act serves to Introduce
Barry. and what she describes as "the
only pure thing that ever entered her
life"-her love for Cosse- Brissae and his
love for her.
In the second act she is IN her apart
menis adjoining the gambling rooms of
Carter has her first real opportunities.
In a scene with Cosse- Brissac she tells,
with marvelously fine shadings III tone
and expression. the story of her nature
warning him that there is something in
her character that will make her bad,
try though she will to live uprightly.
IT is with her the world-oid struggle
against heredity. for the audience already
knows that she Is fheS OFFSPRING of an
unholy union between an unfrocked monk
and 2 woman of the streets. But she
agrees to go away with Cosse- Brissac
to the country to gather violets' and
enter the king, the cardinal aud the lord
chancellor.
When jeanette returns all except the
king retire, and later Cesse- Brissac is
persuaded to believe she has yielded her
fourth acts show her as the kings fave-