Year: 1875

Rec0llec ions of an Old Theater-g0er.


l have often been asked by those who
have not seen her to describe Rachel.
1t is like attempting to describe the sun
set. Ny first experience of her was in
" Phe1ra, that terrible tragedy, which
to me had the superintendent weight of
having been learned as task-work at
school. Obi that somebody would pill
lory every schoolmaster and mistress
who ruins the classics of all literature
by making boys and girls Groom over
them at school. | thought with horror
Of having to hear again those terrible
Alexandrines.


But, when after a few strains of mu.
sic, sad, psllid, beautiful Queen, all
draped in white, dragging a crimson vel
vet mantle behind her, came YEARLY on
the stage, supported by her maidens,
sank into her throne.like chair and com
menced that 6rst despairing, selfaccu.
satory speech, | laid the ghost of my
school mistress forever. These were not
the Alexandrines / had learned. MOI
This was the wall Of lost conscience;
these were the words of a gigantic de-
spair This was creature wounded to
the death. From first to last you saw
the human creature writhing under a
power greater, grander than herself.
The power of the goddess was upon her.
Phe1ra must love, and guiltily Lowell
The way she was pulled across the stage
against her will toward Hyppolte was
very terrible. You could hardly imagine
that the invisible cord which drew her
Was only the fatal weakness Of passion.
Then her horror when she saw herself
face to face with Hyppolite, and her sud-
den retreat. All was superhuman.


saw her afterward in the classic
dress and beautiful part Of Camille, in
which she was a study for all sculptors.
She was an image Of classic grace, thin
woman that she was, and her eyes, those
wonderful eyes that looked like Sits in
her face through which the lightning
played, and again which opened with
SPLENDID size and brilliancy-they we're
the connecting link between the statue
and a woman Her hands we're very
beautiful, small and perfectly shaped,
and immensely expressive, as hands
should be.


Her Adrienne Lecouvreur was a most
splendid picture of costume. Tin
toretto seemed to have lavished all his
abandon of color, luxuriant fancy and
wealth of design on those dresses OF
hers, | remember one brocade whose
flowers were jewels, which was gorgeous.
Her scene with the ladies of the court,
when her lover, Maurice de SAKE, in.
PRODUCES her, was so graceful and touch
ing that it was almost fearful. The
humility Of the beautiful actress who
says to the grsndes danes that "of them
must she learn the courtly elegance,
and the graceful bearing, the modest
courtesy of private life, was supremely
done. Shel who could have swept all
the women in the world off the boards Of
any stage for all these The subsequent
tenderness, pathos, and final tragedy of
this play we're, of course, up to her other
grand efforts. She was beautiful and
lovable creature through the whole of it,
and her death at the end, from poison,
spoiled for me what would have been the
most ornamental picture of herself.
Could have seen Rachel in Adrienne
Lecouvreur without the last scene how
gladly would | have compromised for the
loss Of her powerful acting in that part;
for death should never be represented on
the stage. 1t is beyond the precincts of
art. The old Roman instinct of covering
the face was far truer and nobler than
any manifestation of dying agony.