The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-04-10
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.
Two theatrical happenings of inter
est to the entire state will close the
season at the Murat in Indianapolis.
One of them the presentation of
Maeterlinck' 'Bluebird" for the week
beginning on April twenty-second with
matinees on Wednesday and Saturday.
The other, later on, Sothern and
Marlowe in a Shakesperean roper
toire.
Maeterlinck's popularity, both as a
dramatist and poet, and, indeed, as es-
sayist, is a little hard to explain.
That is, from the ordinary stand
point.
The standpoint of the more or less
| mythical parsonage known as the "av-
erage" reader and the average theatre
/ goer.
According to the authorities on the
latter, Maeterlnck is the last person
who will make an appeal.
For Maeterlinck is a mystic and
| writes in obscure and involved SYM
bols.
According to an article in recent
number of the Harper's Weekly, the
average reader takes to science be-
cause he wants to know what life is.
To philosophy and religious litera-
ture to find out what life means and
to romance for its Interpretation.
| For poetry and essays he has little
use.
So says the diatribe in the Weekly.
II,
| would seem to refute this.
| His essays have had an enormous
reading especially in this country. that
| on The Bee" being familiar to the
most superficial reader.
! "Pelleas and Melisande" one of the
recent successes of grand opera, was
the joint product of the great Danish
writer and the French composer, De-
| bussey.
| It's hold, since it's music is not of
the climatic or coloratura character
which takes with a mixed audience,
was more or less inexplicable.
| But it is in the "Bluebird" that this
| extraordinary genius has reached the
climax of his reputation as a drama
fist.
| Through this wonderful symbolic
play, Maeterlnck is known to thous-
ands who would never have heard of
him otherwise.
1t has been one of those mystifying
| theatric successes which cannot be eX-
planned by the usual processes of rea-
soning but must be put down to BALI
| fling human psychology.
However, on the ground of a spec
tacle alone it is worth the seeing
without any delving, or. indeed, COM
prehension, of it's meaning or it's SYM
bolism.
The latter is easily translatable into
terms of life.
1t is emblematic of that spiritual
| happiness which is the quest of hui
mainly, either acknowledged or unac-
knowledged expressed or submerged.
And it is manifested through the
medium of children, birds and ami
mails.
| 1t is epic in conception and lyric
| in presentation.
| 1t is a pageant and a poem.
No one who wishes to see the high
| est expression of modern theatric art
should fail to go.
In Sothern and Marlowe the Ameri-
can stage has it's most superlative
Shakesperean impersonators with the
exception of Robert Mantell.
That they can make shakespeare
pay" as the uncou have it, in this
day of theatrical chaos, is a tribute
from the public to genuine dramatic
art.
For strange as it may seem-and
another of those singular psychologist
cal manifestations-the great public
has now and then, a canny apprecla-
ton of the apogee of all phases of art.
But il is in the panner of handling,
perhaps, as the painters say, that the
| Interpretation is made.
The master understands how to
mix his paints and throw them on the
canvas.
| How to tune his instrument.
| How to bring out its melody.
1t is in this that Maeterlinck is the
| great artist He translates life into
! simple harmonies, into direct color,
| into understandable quantities.
| And it is only as these great med-
| ums through which life is explained
and expounded-in so far as it can be
speak, that the world is able to at