New-York tribune., 1911-11-19

~ 0"N" q 'VHuoi lnS. But When a
delightful girl OF twenty one is asked to
be twenty-seven and disagreeable. her
twenty-one years are perhaps the bes
response to this demand.
In Smith on the other hand sha
has TO he a parlor maid. and when she
comes on the stage you perceive that for
her the stage and the footlights and the
audience do not exist She is simply
smith: parlor maid to whose fasci-
nations no wife would wish to expose her
husband. but purely and simply a par
iormaid, bent on doing her duty as such
as we'll as II could possibly be done: and
on nothing else whatever II was a niece
OF pure realism Of which the intended
effect was obtainable only by her imaei-
native use of qualities not inseparabIv
connected with that particular station
in life.
Even at that time II might have been
said that If she went to America there
would have been no one to take her place
IN London. All the other English act
resses of renown are-with one excep-
ton and that one outside of comedy
women to whom fame has come with
years, IN or near middle life. Freshness
srontaneity. triumphant youth and the
irresistible enchantment of youth are no
longer theirs. 1t is likely enough that in
Miss Lohr's case heredity has had some
th.ng 10 say to the swftness of her sue
cess. She comes OF three generations of
actors and actresses and is the heir 10
their experiences. Yet so different is her
method from the methods Of earlier DAYS
that her gifts seem innate and individ-
ual.
Still more may it be said since she has
been playing Fernando in Miss Unger's
English version Of VI. Pierre Wolff's
Les Marionettes." Fernando is a try
ing part because she has TO be two
women in one, and more trying in the
English adaptation than in the original.
since the transition is more abrupt in
English than in French. Fernando is
almost debutante a girl-wife convent
bred, married TO a roue whom she loves
but who prefers to her women Of the
world and of the half world When she
came on I was not quite sure whether
she was Miss Marie L0hr or another.
Her makeup was disguise. The
piquant beauty of face was there but It
was different beauty, as if verify from
convent, though a very smart con-
Vcnt-a saint in brown silk The hair
a.,
the light in the eyes shaded; the fire in
them smouldering; the trock studlousIy
simple, though the symmetry Of the fig
ure was still visible. the pure lines flow
ing into each other. The attitudes were
reserved, the gestures controlled; the
actress trying not TO express but TO stife
the emotion, the passion, which thrilled
in her veins; her intelligence, her at
fractions, her feelings, all subdued into
the instruments of an iron will. Her
husband tells her she married him for
his title, as he did her for her money.
She replies that she loved him and still
loves him, but drives him from her in a
storm Of contempt and fierce resentment.
All nevertheless kept down 70 the con-
vent key, and when he is gone it is as if
the end of all things had come.
But it had not. She reappears in the
next act, at a ball, brilliantly dressed.
brilliant in manner, in a decolletage Of
which the unveiled loveliness needs no
excuse; respendent vision: the very
type of woman her husband told her he
/ preferred. The saint in brown silk has
vanished. This radiant would-be sinner
. is an English version of Diane la Chas-
! seresse, though with shorter skirts: or
| if you prefer. tail and stately, like Ten
nyson'S Maud at seventeen, but four
years older. When he sees her he Yields
to all these new allurements, only to be
repelled and sent about his business
! Fernando completes her transformation
by trying to fall in love with another
man. but fails, and so through the need
| less vicissitudes of two more acts recon-
Quers her husband and herself and her
happiness. The temptation to everyday
such part is great, and in this case
the greater because the people by whom
she is surrounded are too plainly not of
the world they are supposed to repre-
sent. But if Fernando ever strikes a
! forced note she does not dwell on it, nor
| forget her rank or social position.
In Paris Fernando was played by Mile.
Pierat. an experienced actress Here IT
has placed an English girl OF twenty-one
in the front rank of her profession,
and hers is, on the whole, the most re-
markable piece of acting now to be seen
in London. Her outlook upon life has
widened. Her authority is no longer chsl-
lenged. The demure figure who first
enters is alive with passionate love for
her worthless husband. The house sees
it. He neither sees nor cares. Unknown
TO a girl otherwise than by intuition rare
in any woman, is this range of woman
" experience hidden beneath conven-
tual exterior, more Puritanical than
conventual; revealed as If against her
will. The firm handling never relaxes
The delicate gradations and shades are
unegingly given. The delicate bodily
grace of the first act becomes a rhyth
mical freedom Of movement in the sec
ord more graceful still. Neither gesture
nor elocution is yet perfect. The gestures
are sometimes i'll considered and unccr-
tain. The voice is not always under COM
mand; at moments the delivery is impa-
tient, the enunciation faulty. You miss
sometimes the fiexibility and sometimes
tn, repose of the finished artist. These
are the inevitable imperfections of i'm
ge aporpb bor beet