The Washington herald., 1912-01-28

Woman in the Case" seemed a mediocre
type OF actress, with magnificent deter
mination but no future 1t was not, IN
deed, until she was given the role of
Annie Jeffries in The Third Degree"
that she came into her own. 1t was
this part which revealed her ability toi
strike, poignantly, truly, clearly, some
deep and gripping chords Of tragic power
Behind her, in front Of her, on all sides
Of her, were Klein platitudes and a
Observation-Disclosures insistence on
the obvious, but Miss Ware got by every
shoal, and held her audience in thrall
with mastery, uneTrlng impersonauon.
She rang true every minute; there were
no false notes. With that hit 20 her
credit-a hit which knocKed the props
from under the stellar aspirations or
Edmund Breese-she had pushed"her way
into the Iimelight, and Broadway mana
gerial acumen saw TO il that she was
kept there. She is justly regarded as
a very formidable potential rival OF
Miss Anglin.
The new Broadhurst play, The Prise
in which Miss Ware will be seen at
the Columbia this week, is the first sat
isfactory starring vehicle" the actress
has been given. 1t is bravura piece
for her-an Americanized Camille sol
10 speak, Mr.. Broadhurst is one OF
In meter from What Happened to-
Jones' to The Man OF the Hour and
at his best is very, very good indeed.
There is no question he has provided
Miss Ware with an opportunity;
whether he has done more than that
will be disclosed tomorrow night
One Of the most picturesque OF the lin
gI1istic buttons, the ''dialecticians" who
manEIe the English ''Iangvich" into a
gorgeous goulRsh, will he seen at the
ReIasco this week. He IS sam Bernard,
alias Hoggenheimer, and will present a
piquant musical comedy called He
Came from Milwaukee" The title Is
Orotundly descriptive, we think ana
there is no more TO be SAID, except that
Mr.. Bernard has surrounded himself with
A good company and that the production
is not Of the road roady.
That cver-perplexing and tantalizing
Woman Of genius, Mrs. Fiske, whose
visit the past week has been so sumu-
latlng and delightful, Is more than ever
an actress Of commanding power. She is
all brain and nerves. There is a crisp,
Ieurotic twang in all she does. She
scorns the ordinary means of emotional
eEpression. Her technique is as elusive
as quicksilver. Bnd seems TO charge the
scene with ovsrtones which are subtle,
invisible, CIairvOyant, yet tangible and
pulsating in their effect In vitality OF
effect this is acting besides which mere
eIocutionary yirtuosity and the pompous
ritual of the Bernhardt school seem tame
and crude.
To put it another way. Mrs. Fiske's
acting Is a psychic rather than an
Csthetic study. In this roaring twentieth
century, when civilization has made of
p NJ ImrCnr-
naUt, why should not an intellectual
actress base her technique upon 1t? 1t IS
distinctly a Ia mode. 1t lends distinction
and power even to farce, which Mrs.
Bumpstead-Leigh' really is, in manner
as well as in point Of view. To imagine
the drama with a common or garden
variety OF star in the role is to see a
play shallow and almost barren of in
terest to the public.
As an illustration of one phase OF the
contrast, current production in Chicago
vaudeville is sufficient. Nine. Bertha Ka-
Itch. the Yiddish actress, whose emo
tional power has received large explolta-
ton on our stage. is playing in poetic,
tragic sketch, called THE Light of St.
Agnes which Mrs. Fiske wrote and
used as a cUrtain-raiser about a decade
ago. OF the performance a Chicago critic
write as follows:
Nine. Bertha Kalich is enacting the
role of Toinette. the Creole girl. Her
treatment of the part is bold. vehement,
and vociferOus, srd. being that, it ut
terly misses the pitiful, shuddering quail
ity with which Toinette's brief story
should be imbued. 1t is acting in the
grenadier manner, and it has nothing in
common with the haunted attributes Of
spiritual cropping, OF pathetic resolution,
OF heroism affrighted while it sin is IN
questioning, that Mrs. Ffske gave the
Nine. Kalich's impersonation is, however,
RudaciOus and telling. She makes a bold
pictures and she releases a prodigious
Clamor. But she is not the plteous ToIn-
ette, superstitious, sensuous, weak. and,
in the end, sublime"
Leaving the Belasco after a perform
ance Of THE Boss" a certain snobbish
lady unconsciously paid tribute TO the
mastery acting Of HoIbrook Blinn, when
she remarked that he must be a socially
impossible. but fascinating beast" and
finished with that bromide customarily
allotted to John Drew. He simply seems
TO act himself" The same lady would
have secreted her diamonds and set the
burglar alarm had she seen Mr.. BIinn
as Jim PIatt in Salvation Nell
And IT is just this faculty of living a
role that is the secret OF Holbrook
BlLnn s success. since Inc DUCHESS OF
Dantzic," when he was more like Napo-
leon than-well, than John Armstrong
Chaloner thinks himself, down to the
present season, every figure created has
been drawn with the sureness of Sar-
gents brush, that penetrates TO the very
depths of a character, and lays bare the
innermost soul. a-.
'.Shindy Mike" Regan will live as a
portrait of the contemporary big Amer
lean when Ready Money Ryder, OF
the Lion and the Mouse and such
travestIes have long been forgotten.
The picture OF Louis Nethersole, with
his. uear-Hammerstein hat cooked over
one ear, standing like ''Horatius at the
bridge on the foyer steps of the Bal
timore Academy of Music Thursday
night, was one that certain Washington
jans VIII not soon forget. II was his
painful duty (at 7.50 o'clock, TO announce
to a raging, storming mob that Miss
Anglin was nervously PROSTATE, that the
deiayed-in- transmission Lydia Gilmore"
would go over until Friday, &C. Neither
sole did not flinct. Nor did the box
oficer attaches, who worked like beavers
refunding and exchanging until midnight
This IS a had season for serious plays"
says Claiming Pollock. One might go
further and say it IS a bad season for
all types Of plays. Even farce, which
was so conspicuously in evidence for two
seasons, has been pushed into the back
rround by spectacle So far as the sea-