New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-11-05
A NEW TRAGIC PLAYLET
Follows "The Passing of the
Third Floor Back"
THE SACRAMENT OF JUDAS
Forbes Robertson Appears in a
Stacy but Effective Episode
of the French Revolution.

1.-THE Sacrament of Judas" A play in
one act, translated from the French of
Louis Tiercelin. The Shubert Theatre.
THE CAST.
Jacnues Bernez ........'J. Forbes Robertson
The Count OF Kervern Alex. Scott-Gatty
Chaplin Representative OF the Peoplel.
Grendon Bentley
lean GuiIlou ................H II. Athol Forde
Jefik Guillou .............. Gertrude Elliott
In a recent talk about her experiences
I'm America, Nine. Simone spoke of what
seemed to her the curious over-accent
American audiences put on the person
ality of the player as distinguished from
his work. She was puzzled, for instance
by the obviously genuine and almost uni
yersal admiration for Miss Maude Adams
and she commented on the inability Of
American audiences to detach what was
passing on the stage from their own lives
and view il, as the French spectator
might. with the impersonal interest which
one might bestow on the perfect working
of some highly ingenious and complicated
machine.
And this difference is, of course, one OF
the explanations for the fact that French
farces often seem so shocking to English
speaking audences-they are unused and
almost unable to let a clever dramatic
craftsman take certain set of ideas, the
conventions of whose manipulation are
thoroughly understood by all concerned,
and juggle them about in new and sur
prising patterns with no more personal
relation to them, perhaps, than the Jug
gler on the stage has to his three plates
THE Sacrament of Judas" which Mr..
Forbes Robertson played yesterday after
noon as a dramatic postscript to THE
Passing of the Third Floor Back" Is
thoroughly French in its dependence for
interest, not in the actual reality or Its
characters, but the ingenious and Logical
fashion in which they are moved about
and dovetailed into a tragic SITUATION
which while it does not make the spec
tator in the least uncomfortable. or feel
for an instant that the people on the stage
are real, yet gives to his intellectuals an
unexpected and piquant dramatic bite
The one act is played in the freight or
Breton fsherman's cottage on a night
during the French revolution. A royalist
and an unfrocked priest are sheltered
there by the peasant and his daughter
The priest has voluntarily resigned his
orders and turned republican, but we
learn early in the action that II such
one performs n sacrament OF the Church
according to the prescribed ritual IL is
valid lust the same The priest, now a
schoolmaster, loves the daughter, and just
AS the soldiers Of the revolution descend
20 ha rOValiSf tlpH
suspect is there the schoolmaster learns
that the latter is his successful rival the
priest is Just about to give him up to the
republicans when the royalist, who Is
devout believer, claims as his last right
that the priest shall hear his confession.
Here, then, Is your situatfon-a man who,
as a man, Is ready 10 spring at his rival
throat, listening as a priest TO the others
confession OF the wrong he has done TO an
innocent girl the priest loves, and then alb
solving him. Having gone thus far, the
schoolmaster-p priest contrives that MS
adored shall escape with the noble gentle
man she loves, while he. putting on his
monks robes again, and knowing that his
life is forfeited, calls in the soldiers
Bang go the republicans muskets, the
priest topples over and down goes the
curtain.
There are no. loose joints in this wholly
STACY, but distinctly effective, little piece.
, II is a well written and we'll acted tour
dc force, thoroughly good Of its-from our
present point OF view-rather unlmpor-
tant kind Forbes Robertson appears as
the schoolmaster-priest, and Miss Elliott
as the girl. Alexander Scott-Gatty was
the royalist and Athol Forde unusually
easy and genuine as the peasant father.
The play was written by Louis Tiercelin
and translated by Louis n. Parker. IL
will be played with THE Passing OF the
Third Floor Back" on Saturday evening
and twice next week A. H.