The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-05-01

sideration in the case Of Little Eyolf,p
which we get now for the first time in
English except for a single nights ex-
pertinent two years ago. A Danish
cOuntrywOman of Ibsen, Ola Neilssen,
announced that she would interpret him
to benighted Americans. She chose
Little EyOlf'' for the initial lesson,
hired a hall and five actors requisite
besides herself, and started in on her
mission. a small audience pushed its
long hair from its high brows TO let the
light into their heads. The perform
ance was so very bad, however, that
only forty persons gathered on Tues
day to see it repeated. On Wednesday
the hall wasn't opened On Saturday
Ola Nielsen, a saddened but genuine
artist, sailed for home.
Same Drama, New Conditions.
Now we get the same drama under
good conditions. ALA Nazimova enactS
the wife so Singularly and mOnOmaniac-
ally jealous of her husbands love that
she becomes. in wild desire. if not in
clear purpose, the murderess of her own
poor crippled child because the father
devOtes himself TO the helpless little
one. NaZimOva, a Russian, is one of
the foreign actresses who, beginning
with Modjeska, came to America to act
in their native tongues, but remained to
make money with broken English. In
year of speaking our language, she
has won admiration so practical that
a pretty theatre has been built as a
gift with her name on it
The first third of Little Eyolf'' is
uncanny with the doings of rat wife,
another Pied Piper of Hamelin, who,
like him, rids places Of rats and mice
by Turing them away; and as he made
a whole villages children into noun
tain, never to return, so she entices
Little EyOlf TO the shore and browns
him in the sea. You may have read
that in an Ibsen book, but the perusal
can hardly have impressed you as an
excellent stage representation would.
This rat wife, a weird old witch of
beldame, is seen for about ten minutes
in the first act only; yet when Mrs.
Patrick Campbell introduced the play
in London she chose that short but very
thick role for heTSelf-Gefacing her
beauty in the makeup, but getting the
last half Of the evening to show it at the
social functions to which her celebrity
made her welcome. In New York an
unheralded Miss Ferguson, the rat wife,
stops q [ Eyolf's home to rest. The child
is Fascinated by her gleeful account, in
piping tones, of how she has just en-
tieed the rodent verrnin from an in
tested house with her croning song, and
then set her imp dog to lead them into
the water to drown. Women in the au-
dience shivered when she uncovered, as
that devil of an aid, harmless little
terrier in a bag.
Little Eyolf is fascinated by the old
woman. Rita, the jealous wife, vaguely
surroises-almost wishes-that the child,
now rivalling her in her husbands
heart. might be lured away and
drowned like the rats. And that is what
happens. At the end of the first act
word is brought from the shore that the
boy has followed the imp-dOg into the
water and is dead.
With the rate wife out of the action,
ALA NaZimova's PRESERVATION of Rita,
the abnormal mother. is dominant for
the rest Of the play. Her English enun-
citation is faulty yet, but her eloquent
pantomime helps out her elocution. She
depicts clearly. to eyes and ears COM
bined, every phase in the neurasthenia
of a woman so abnormaIly intolerant of
rivalry in her husbands love that she
is glad of the drowning of her own lit
tie crippled boy.
It seems to me that Ibsen found that
the theme of the loving wife and hat
ing mother didn't write out well to a
full evenings length; so he put in an
other subject to piece out. It was the
bald one of man and woman be-
HSNluS IiltN are DIOlllcI anu S1StcT Wneu
there is no blood relationship between
them The man is Alfred. the husband
of Rita, and the woman is Asia, who
not till the middle of the play finds out
the truth. The two have grown up IN
mutual fondness. They are congenial.
She is a member Of his household. In
the enlargement of the married pair,
this supposed sister gives her sympathy
10 the husband. The personators are
Ida Conquest and Brandon lyman. The
change I'm her when she learns that her
love is not for a brother, and in him,
when she informs him, are cleverly de-
picted.
It seems to me that Ibsen meant the
wife, Rita, should become aware Of
Asta's love for Alfred. and be goaded
thereby to some mad act for catas-
trophe of jealousy. Greek writer's
wrought dreadful tragedies from the
wedlock unawares Of lovers in close