Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-04-01
TREE IN SHAKESPEARE
SEEN BY EATON
Continued from Page One

Continued from Page One
red harples, the two cardinals, so easily
get around her few days later. Miss
Matthison has the better of the tragedy
queens there. And it is doubtful II any
Katherine, including the original, ever
looked more lovely either in anger or in
grief than She
There are many other good players in
the cast, including Charles Dalton as
Buckingham Fred Eric, as Norfolk. and
willette Kershaw, as a very firtatious
Anne Bullen.
Tree himself, as Wolsey, is neither good
nor bad His Wolsey is never vitality
alive; he seldom clearly and unmistakably
outlines the character, and he certainly
never makes him a figure OF such mn
pressiveness and imaginative glamour that
his fall is truly like that of Lucifer.
Neither Is his reading of the famous con-
cluding speeches, the best in the play, inn
pressive as the eloquent and musical rem
dering of poetic speech 1t is in no sense
to be compared with Forbes-Robertson
reading of Shakespeares melodies. HUT
nevertheless, the performance has dignity
it is at times very picturesque in pose and
significant in by-play and II is always at
least competent routine. All in all, on
the acting sde-the most important side
in Shakespeare-this production holds
the interest and carries the play and its
dramatic message to the audience.
on the spectacular side the production,
while rich and effective by older stan
dards, is in some ways curiously old
fashioned to eyes trained by modern
stage-craft. Such scenes as the hall AT
Blackfriars and the coronation in the
abbey (the actual coronation is shown as
a climax Immediately after Katherine's
death and the rest of the drama merci-
fully omitted) are massive, built-up sets,
with glowing stained glass windows, and
would once have been thought quite won
derful, Even today, in a chronicle play
like this, realistic scenery is probably
necessary. We all know too well what
Westminster looks like to represent 1t by
a Gordon Craig dream. But Westminster
was never lighted by foots and spots
There is neither naturalism nor imagina-
tion in the lighting of this production,
Beasco. who used to be compared TO
Tree, has gone far beyond him in lighting
development. Belasco would have lighted
the abbey through the windows, and when
his coronation procession had massed at
the rear he would have cast warm gules
on every fair breast there, instead of
leaving them all in darkness while an
oId-fashioned spotlight followed the star.
In his handling of the many supers,
too, Tree is oddly old-fashioned. They
wear magnificent clothes-and they walk
with the most ridiculous slouches, are
picked with no regard TO facial or bodily
fitness or attractiveness, and seldom have
any crowd life, or melt and flow into con-
sciousIy devised compositions. Indeed,
they perilously remind you of grand opera
supers, the sort who are picked up at
the stage door for so cents a night, We
wonder II that was the way Sir Herbert
did it in London? II So it is no wonder
Granville Barker decided the staging of
Shakespeare needed revitalizing.
on the whole, then, Trees Henry
VIII" Is a rather old-fashioned produce
tion with the faults and merits of such
production, made by man of taste and
skill and resources. 1t Is spectacular
without being truly picturesque, sumptous
without being really beautiful; and, on
the other hand, it is I'm the main acted
smoothly. sonorously, inelligently. and
with emotional vitality Perhaps the
faults are less than the merits, this
being the case. Shakespeare is quite pos
sible without scenery. But Shakespeare
without the proper acting is very nearly
the most hopeless thing in the world.
Like Mozart's music, the right perform
anee brings out immortal loveliness, while
the bungling performance is productive
only OF agony.