New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1909-10-27

glory His holiness and his eloQuence.
and the concessions he has brought from
Caesar oEerawe the rioters. to whom he
promises a more glorious Judea Mari
amne's enemies in the royal household.
alarmed for their own lives. now poison
HeTod's mind with the belief that his
queen has been false to her wifeIy vows.
XIII her" he cries And then he would
prevent the execution of his own decree.
but there comes a stately embassy from
Cesar. comforting upon the Judean King
kingdoms beyond, adding TO his boun-
daries
Hippo samaria and Gadara.
And high-walled Joppa and Anthedon's
And GAIA unto these. and STATIONS
towers.
NO sooner heard than. al this climax Of
his triumphs. herald comes announcing
the Queens death. But the unheeding
Herod can not. or will not. believe this IN
beievable loss. He climbs the stairs TO
the royal chamber and cries:
Marianne. hear YOU this? Marianne. see
YOU?
Hippo. Samaria and Gadars.
And hIgh-wailed Joppa and Anthedon.
towers,
But Marianne lies dead within And
the curtain falls upon the second act
But such is Herod's love for Marianne
that he dare not acknowledge she is dead.
He fingers in the sunlight without life:7
his reason wastes; unkempt and ragged. he
roves about the palace: the great works
With which ne would cover his kingdom are
stayed; his days are dreams His courtiers
keep violent madness from him by main
tanning the pCetence that Marianne lives
He knows that she is gone. but still ne
fights with reason. l. she is gone 80
fineiess is his will that ne will recreate
her out Of endless yearning." Finally he
. DEGREES that she be brought before him
He touches the dead face and then him
self is stricken and in catalepsy bound
He stands there staring. The last curtain
falls. 1t rises, and the night has come.
and Herod stands statue-like by Mariamnes
bier. Again the curtain rises. Dawn
glimmers. Herod is standing rigid, staring.
lingering without life. 1t is the end.
Behold this Herod motiouIess and mute
To me il seems that they who grasp the
world.
The kingdom and the power and the glory,
Must pay with deepest misery OF spirit.
1t is in the final act that Mr.. Faversaa n
is best Here. with uncommon skill. he
we'll depicts the king whose mind is
trembling and whose end is nigh. But for
the rest Of his acting. all that can Oe said
Is that it is unconvincing, weak. His de-
livery is full of such false emphasis as
this:
And now the husband hasteth TO the
wife"
The spirit of poetic imagination touches
him not. And while his speech is almost
always faulty. Miss Ops is only some
[ times curious yxba
And PULLED these pillars down upon
our heads as if she wished to distinguish
! between push and a pull. or any other
method OF demolishing palace.
| The burden of the play. as Stephen Phil
| lips wrote it, is borne mostly by the i'm
| personator OF Herod. AS it is played at the
! Lyric it is carried chiefly by Marianne be-
| cause she is fairly equal to her part, and
/ Mr.. Faversham is not equal 10 his. 1t was
/ a pleasure to hear Mr.. Cooper-CIiffe speak
! the lines of Gadius. But this actor was
/ trained to speak blank verse many years
ago.
The sumptuous mounting of this ragedy
! does not compensate for the smothering
! and slurring OF its finest lines. II is easy
to see that Miss Opp will make even
more of her part than she does now; il
is not easy to see that Mr.. Favershail
can ever typify Herod, the man Of storms
But who on our stage could do so? Mr.
1 Tree did not, in London. But he look I'd
the part, bearing himself like militant
king Mr.. Faversham's ambition is ,Id-
nirable. Would that his acting were as
great and could call forth unstinted
praise. But since Edwin Booth the Ameri-
can stage has had no actor who could
speak the lines of HerOd they should
be spoken and give the character its life
and majesty. a W.