The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-02-14

From the Louisville Courier-Journal.
 >f1 HE hypothetical question, What completely met by the rejoinder,
 ''She didn't wear nothing," and that
 much being conceded, one may proceed
 to consider Mary Garden as the latest
 protagonist of the Strauss "Salome,'
 who, true to the spiritual fancy of a
 more than fieshy poet, was given us
 that we might dispel every painful mem
 ory and forget all troublous enjoyment.
 The New York World, recognizing the
 lyrical bias of Its readers, admitting the psychological value of a drama which ] could only be published in Paris and
 in French. by the courtesy of private | bibliophilical society, anxious that it's tu-
 mrts and its tempests might receive eX-
 act interpretation, and that its moral
 deformity should not be degraded to. the
 commonplace basis of a literary mala-
 dy," engaged MT. Reginald de Koven to
 review the presentation.
 | It did not care to have it said that here
 was a work of art appealing only to
 curiosity, that it was one concerning it.
 
 especially, the senses, of it's spectators:
 that it was compounded of clements
 strange, uncouth, inhuman; that it's in-
 trigue was exotic, its scheme artificial.
 its characters historically inexact MT. Hammerstein who produced it, has | a genius for dverting his world, for startling his groundlings; he does not believe in colorless and sober uniform | ity, he staggers at the commonplace, he ] will not waste time, or money either, , on the obvious. Neither rules nor models
 confine him; accepted formulas are prud-
 ish, old-maidish. "vieux jeu''.; a brilliant exposition of the human form divine, not too much disguised by drapery, not un- duly clouded by convention; a curtain that does not conceal and an art that has forgotten 'summa, ars celare artem' these w embody all that it Is neces- sary to show"
 It was said of the theatre, many years ago, that 1t stood, first for ambition and, next, for avarice; that, since man under the influence of a passion was ugly and truthful, 1t had come rather to represent
 him in that case than. as it were, 10
  character; that classic heroes were most ly fools they breathed out a last sigh in a tirade of a hundred lives, they g-
 nored all physical limitations, they were at once romantic and impossible. This ideal world, this conformity to the ab- stract this discipline of nature, this art composed in stated proportions of reason and of fact, was not true enough to life as Oscar Wilde knew 1t. He did not. axe 40 fN,- tXnr .P actions" but without vortex of pas sions'' he could not represent humanity. And he wrote Salome. Says Mr. De Koven:
 "We must grant to the Wilde drama poetry of language and poetic imagery in the expression of the thought, inten- sity of physical passion and force and l emotion of dramatic action which reaches | out in compelling fashion and takes us | by the throat while the positive nast- ness, perverted and morbid deseneracy, l pestiferous, unnatural, unhuman and | vicious uncleanness of the motif thought l make our gorge to rise in repulsion and | disgust.
 Allowing that such abnormal instincts and distorted passions are occasionally attributes of our frail humanity, 1t were | merciful to spread over them a pail of deepest silence rather than to Haunt their unclean and filthy cerements in the face | of world which can only be degraded
 by the guilty knowledge of their furtive l existence"
 Everything. in other words, appeals to 1 the senses; the simplicity of ordinary ex- l istence, the unconscious realities of the ! day have no place here. Napoleon said: 1 Let us wash our soiled linen at home" 1 but Salome wears no linen and too little l purple She appeals only to curiosity, 1 exterior, material personal and palpitat- l ing. 1 We read of "cacophonic monStrosites''
 and of the "perversion of every real canon of musical art; of turbulent, dynamic whirl of emotional ntensity' and | of the appeal at once to the educated | musician and also to the musical neo- phyte," and we recognize right away that
 Reginald is out of his depth. Polyphonic