Los Angeles herald., 1907-05-14
ANNIE RUSSELL
AN IDEAL PUCK
SUMPTUOUS PRODUCTION OF
SHAKESPEARE'S COMEDY
midsummer Nights Dream" Made an
IdyIIic Fairy Spectacle - Not
Flaw in Its Presentatlon-cast
Exceptionally Good

When we were all youngsters, we
grownups, and were first introduced ir
that epitome of all that is greatest in
ther read aloud the tragic happenings
and the merry conceits of the wizard OF
the pen, in onr minds eye we peopled
a little world of our own creation with
kings and fairies. queens and elves,
hobgoblins and lords, ladies and Doors.
And in our lively minds we saw them
in haze of reality, weaving their
spells, administering their laws, max
ing their loves and cutting their cap
ers, and 1t was all very genuine and
actual, in those days before the stern
life of stress and wordaday which
comes to every grownup had thrown its
tolls about us.
These men and women, sprites and
nymphs of the Masters summoning
were genuine to us; they lived and
breathed; the air was filled with them;
every wood had it's colony. and every
fallen tree was home for them.
Those of us who saw "A Midsummer
Nights Dream" at the Mason last night
took an excursion back through the
years with which time has whitened
our heads or wrinkled our faces-back
to the dear, blissful days of early
youth, when fact and fancy went hand
in hand; ere the atheistic tendencies
of later life had driven imagination
shamefacedly into corner and had bid
den dreams be all false. We were
again before the fireside, in the glow
of its red embers, wherein the people,
that the Bard told of were living and
moving and having their being before
our eyes.
For here was a midsummer nights
dream come true; here was vision
in reality. Here were genuine fairies.
and an actual Robin Goodfellow, and
naughty kings and lovely queens and
lovers true and false; here were troops
of gnomes and groups of sprites, and
they ringed and danced on the green
sward in the moonlight, just as old VIII
said they did; they few through the
air and "girdled the earth in forty min
utes," as he declared they would; they
tricked the mortals and played hob
with their affections, as he declared
was the case. They came to life in
full view of our waking eyes, and made
merry for our delight while we looked
on in hushed amaze; and transported
us again into the Cosmos of that won
drous poet, and we hardly knew
whether we sat in a prosaic theater and
saw paid actors and actresses play at
mumming, or were spectators in hid
den nook in the forest, and beheld real
pixies play pranks and actual hobgob-
Inns sport. The illusion-if such 1t be;
the writer has not yet convinced him
self that it wasn't all beautlful
5yoa yn-tba iIluSi0n WAS nerfeCt.
OF course, good old Will wouldn't
have known his own pen-child had he
seen it in it's grown-up garb and fash
ion. Styles have changed since he
hung up a sign, This is wood,
and left the rest to the kind deceit OF
his followers. Aye, times have
changed, and Will is nothing like so
popular with the hoi polloi as he was
a matter of four centuries ago. But
the spectacular environment of his
wondrous dream" while a modern
day invention, was all in his massive
brain, and who can deny that the play
as we have 1t presented us here today
is not the very thing that he formu-
lated in his mind, even though the
limitations which redged him about
permitted not it's depletion as he saw
it inwardly?
Certainly nothing in violation of his
most sacred traditions is done to shock
the most devoted adherent of the or
iginal text, even though it is so
abridged and shifted about here and
there, so embellished with music and
song, that he would be stranger to
his own offspring ever and anon. For
we mortals of the now must have our
meals served with many a kickshaw
to be palatable; we must take our
medicines in sugar coated doses, and
our drama, doubtless, we require re-
vamped in the same fashion.
Still, every device of artistry, ev-
cry possibility of modern science has
been combined to make this produce
tion a Wondrous picture, florid
pageant, a lovely harmonious stage
vision, and even though the Avon bard
might find it bit strange, none can
cavil at anything that has been done
to it as violative of the best atmos-
phere or the most hide-bound tradi-
tion.
Annie Russell as Puck is Goodfellow
come to life. Gracile as fawn. merry
as cricket, lightsome as a dancing
sunbeam and frisky as young kitten,
she is the perfect embodiment of the
laughing, prankish elf Demure little
Annie Russell, nobody believed that
you could do it; no one could imagine
you in the role; no one hereafter will
dare succeed you; you are perfection.
In garb, in action, in reading and in
every detail, no improvement could be
suggested Is this faint praise glim-
mer to you of what is your due?
And how delightful the company you
keep. From John Bunny as old Bot
tom, unctious, boorish and wholly
laughable, to Oswald Yorke as Lysan-
der, whom any woman would 10 Q; from
Ina Brooks, very Titania of the FAIRIES,
to Thomas Coffin Cooke. the inimitable
Ounce; from Lionel Adams, an ex-
cellent Demetrius, to Lansing Rowan as
Helena, whom he would not love; from
Catherine Proctor, the lovely Hernia,
to the host Of fairyland, it would be
hard to find flaw. Great care was
shown in making up this organization,
close attention was paid to every detail
even to the woodland tones of the
sprites' garb; the orchestral score is
superb the scenic effects and the cos
tuning are beyond cavil. more alb
solute ensemble would be hard to i'm
agine; more delightful theatrical Of
fering, those masters of the mimic
world Klaw & Erlanger, could not ar
range Many have been their SINS but
-. t,ox