The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-01-05

New York. Jan. 3.-The most intel
lectual two actresses of fame on the
American stage today, Minnie Mad
dern Fiske and Ala NazimOva, and
the most beautiful two of dramatic
grade, Ethel Barrymore and Maxine
Elliott, begin the new year here in
fitting changes of character; and three
OF the fathers Of these heroines are
such practical dramatic sires as Hen
rik Ibsen, Henry V Esmond and
Clyde Fitch. Besides the promise of
interesting work that lies in those
seven names, there is the further
chance of satisfaction in the fact that
three of the roles have been written
directly for the actresses who play
them.
The exceptional heroine not con-
ceived, born and bred for the person
ator is Rebecca West; but as she is
begot by Ibsen, and embodied by Mrs
F1ske. need / tell you that the tictional
woman and the actual woman are at
finitive? 'ROsmersholn' has been re-
garded as the least actable of the plays
that Ibsen wrote after quitting poetry
and going into prose 1t takes up the
opposition in a Norwegian town be
tween conservatism and radicalism
and discusses it with the tongues Of a
college professor, a newspaper editor
an agitative orator and an apOstate
Christian priest. What they say, pro.
con and loquaciOusly, fill thTee-fOurths
of a long evening; and Mrs. Fiske, to
have their arguments well uttered,
pays what can't be less and may be
more than 81 900 a week to Bruce Nc
Rae, George Arliss, Albert Bruning
and Fuller Mellish to be the speakers.
u follows that. as there are no more
than four pulpit preachers in New
York who get salaries amounting to
that sum. Mrs. Fiske's Ibsenian debate
sounds eloquent.
And is Mrs. Fiske herself of no &C
count? Yes. yes and yes. I do wish
she would speak always loud enough
10 be understood by folks back of me
i'm my sixth row seat, for they pay
their good money, while I-wen 1
want them TO get their Ibsenian
moneys worth OF "ROsmersholm."
Mrs. Ffske's Rebecca West is a Scan
dinavian girl of that acute mentality
which is said TO come commonly of il
licit parentage. She is an aggressive
socialist, almost an anarchist; and, to
gain power as an "emancipated wo-
man." she takes possession of Ros-
mer's self as well as his home, for he
is an heir to wealth and prestige. But
there is a Mrs. ROsmer to hinder, and
so Rebecca subtly and devilishly
drives her to jealousy and suicide.
That has passed and gone before the
play begins; and the action sets forth
a sequence of racking emotions for
Rebecca, caused by her love for ROs-
mer, her remOrse for the death of his
wife, and a final despair which filings
her with him into the millrace where
his wife drowned herself. The four
men in this Ibsen play aim at heads
only, but the woman hits hearts, too.
X
ALA Nazimova, as 1 have told you
before now, is a Russian actress who
learned in six months to speak Eng
liSh so ftuently that New Yorker can
almost understand it. She has made
Ibsen acutely fashionable, but now
she abanGOns him at the same time
that Mrs. Fiske takes him up again.
Mrs. Nazimova spent a summer under
Henry Miller's orders hearing nothing
but good English at the country home
of Robert Underwood Johnson, the ma
gaZiniSt. Her hosts son, Owen,
breathed the NazimOva air, and was
inspired to write for her an Ibsenian
drama Therefore We get THE Com
et' with NaZimOVa in the role of
star actress of cometary brilliance
This creature was dim at 16 when she
went away an outcast from a Spanish
village. but she lit herself up with the
fire of genius TO dazzle and destroy
back 20 Vensefully torture her seducer
by seducing his guileless son, she is a
binding comet of fascination. In a
single day she burns out the hearts
and souls of the father and son.
The serpentine grace of Mrs. Nazi-
nova has reptilean poison as she eX-
erts it to lure the son TO his death.
Brandon lyman makes the young fell
low so boyishly lovely in his ignorant
innocence of sin that it looks reason
able when the wicked woman sudden
ly loves him as passionately as she
hates his sire. The upshou is suicide
for the fascinated boy upon hearing
what the woman is. 1.-The Comet
runs wild IN its imitation of Ibsen
and the friendly first audience hardly
knew whether to admire its author S
strength of scheme or despise his fee
bIeness Of execution; so it did both.
x
The pair OF beauties superlative,
Ethel Barrymore and Maxine Elliott
sat to skilled playwrights to be depict