Los Angeles herald., 1910-01-22
The Merchant of Venice
Finely Played at Mason
BY w. HERBERT BLAKE


NJ HE cry of a stihed revenge and
the litter of frantic mirth are
\ drowned by the swelling madrigal
of romance in THE Merchant
of Venice" as interpreted by
Louis and Alpine James at the
Mason. This, l am sure, is as Shakes
peare intended, before the horde of com
mentators had descended upon the
drama to rend its viscera apart and
discover the true inWardness of its
rationale and content.
That is not to say that we have not
a noble and suffering Shylock, because
we hail Portia as the true artistic CEN
ter of the play. Their is more than a
hint of allegory in Mr.. James Jew.
He is the merchant first, one may al
most say, the Jew but incidentally. 1t
is the eternal contrast of tradesman
and aristocrat that we see in Shylock
and Antonio, an antithesis and combat
more ancient than the aged and now
slumbering feud of Jew and Christian,
and perhaps more insidiously deadly.
Antonio, as Otto T. Andrie drew him
last night, was the spoiled gentleman,
dabbling none too skillfully in trade
and even despising his chances of gain
or loss compared with the higher stake
of honor and the friendship of honor.
In the characters of his garrulous
chums, even to the voluble Gratiano,
we see the same hippant levity. They
are true abethans-Venetian or no
recking little Of material ends but
much of the sheer sweep and stir of
life in a great and a far echoing age.
Such were some of Shakespeare
friends, no doubt, and of such gathered,
now and again, many of the Mermaid
company.
But the dramatist himself was of
another cast, and in his picture of
Shylock we see the far-sighted view
of a man who dreamed of trade as a
nobler thing than did his contem-
poraries. There is much of the Arab
in Mr.. James Shylock. There is little
servility, as in the older impersona-
tions. There is even less sham hero
ism and mock glamous, as in some of
the modern attempts to glorify what
is at best but cruelty, if naturally,
human. There is, instead, a dignity
of sincerity and a superbly natural
method of acting which will yet re-
store to us the Shakespeare of whom
the scholars and the monasteries of
thought have robbed us. 1t was no
static portrayal. We saw the man
change before our eyes. There was
the transition from confidence to an
'guish and from anguish to fierce and
ruthless resolve. AS fortune turned
against him and a salutary Juggling
of the law .hereft him of his prey the
man yielded sadly, not with passion,
as if the justice of this mercy were to
him a thing forever to be uncompre
hended. With a fine sense of the un-
derlying comedy of Shakespeare in
tention the actor deliberately effaced
himself from the scene. There was a
stricken majesty in his departure. TO
the eye of romance>there was also a
certain poetic justice.
The Portia of Aphie James is a
thing which must be seen. For light
ness of touch, for delicacy and purity
of tone and for an abounding and con-
tagious humor this characterization
outranks anything I have seen at the
Mason. To hear her voice alone in
recitation of those beautiful lines,
which the dramatic achievements of
300 years have not approached, is a
pleasure which atones for many waste
and weary weeks of unmusical COM
edy and tragic farce. 1t is the simple,
human intonation, exquisitely modu-
lated sweetly attuned to mood and
thought. 1t is vocal acting, not mere
recitation, and for this alone we must
be grateful.
Again and again one felt the spirit
Of the finely attentive audience rising
to meet and appreciate this portrayal
At every possible opportunity, and at