The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 22, 1895, Page 6

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 22, 1895. THE BEAUTIFUL SYLVAN SCENE FROM “A & 2457 S YOU LIKE IT” N % %7 = _ THE FAIR ROSALIND AND ORLANDO. [From an original pen and ink sketch made for “The Call” by Harrison Fisher.] MATIS PERSONZE. | Normal McGregor Surper of his do- .......Brigham Royce | Lords attending on the Deane and hman nding upon Freder! 5 o orge W. Fyan es, wrestler to Frederick..George S. Miebling | B sosaee v.vs......Charies Bates nd Orlando, sons of Sir Kowland de Edmund Hayes and William G. Beach Hugh Ford 15119[’]1?!(1:! vius. Pietro Sosso iliam, & country fellow, in love With Audrey ....Thomas Kierns d Duke.. | Lis , & country we i Miss Lillian Dare, Miss tiss Perrin, Miss Sepul- orn, Miss Browning, Miss | , from the Columbia Theater | Dramatic ATt Lippert, Mr. G Mr. Hopkins, eater School mers, C. R. Morse, | rom the University | Russ, L. Rawlings of the = Club. —J. P. Hutchins, D. H. Harwood, R. H, B. King of the Uni- | O Shakespeare’s furthest reach of | > idealism was linked the players’ ut- termost realism, and, to use the lan- v itself, these latter said to If you will see a pageant truly played * ® Go hence a little and I shall conduct you. How many thousand accepted the invi- tation is a large, practical matter of arith- metic and the box-office, which should not be allowed to mar, by so much as a men- tion, the spell of the poetic presence. Sutro Heights has its own quality of beauty, by which it is spoken of among travelers, wherever in the world they be, who have once stood upon its eminence and under its umbrageous trees, watched and heard tke sounding ocean. Of the sights of earth to be singled out as worth speaking of the view there to be bad isone. Butto the traveler who shall go there in all the to-morrow and to-mor- | rows of travelers it will be said: ‘“Here is where ‘As You Like It' was done that time in the fall of '95, you remember. Just here, under these trees, Orlando threw the wrestler; here Rosalind and Celia, being banished from the court and going to seek the foresters, came and rested ; by this tree stood the gloomy Jacques while he re- cited the monologue of the seven agesand liere and here and there, to these real and living trees is where Orlando, the love- sick, pinned “his verses and carved the name of Rosalind. re stood Touch- stone while he explained the intricacies of the lie seven times removed.” 4 It was truly a noble accomplishment fit for history. To be sure, not each_individual of those thousands who witn d it liked it just as well as every other individual liked it. Indeed, it is safe to say that several of the thousands suffered con- siderable impatience as the first act dais- solved 1nto the second, the second into the | third and so on, and they discovered that the sparkling and famous lJines being uttered by some of the best players of the stage, under such conditions as must awaken their most latent meaning, were passing unheard by them. Ideally real the conditions were to be sure, but the real greenwood tree and the real blue sky are not good sounding boards. And that must and should haye been and doubtless was taken into consideration. Expectation really had no rights beyond | what was furnished at Sutro Heights yes- | terday afternoon. | ‘As You Like It” was writ, per- | ps, with its fresh. out-of-doors air biow- | ing through it, its leather leggins treading | the measures of its rhythm, and the smell | i the woods that haunts it, men have had | a fancy to see it said and done in company | with nature. Since it was presented three years ago | in New York—and just out of New York— with such success the idea has become a passion or afad, the growth of which was slightly checked by the failure at Chicagn during the f Then came tion in be. d Society me good people with a sug- 1 of the Channing A or Christian Work in S: rancisco. ‘The Stockwell Company of layers is at the Columbia, and there out y the sea is Sutro Heights. Presto! Do you know—you who were not there— a place down a little way to the right of the Sutro residence, where there is a slight depression of the land—a level place where grow some tall, wide-spreading trees where two woodland paths meet and cross and wander on? There is a tall fine structure there—to one side—that no one seems to know the | purpose of, but which looks as though it | might have been designed as a music- stand, and around that is a high ledge, es- pecially on side toward the level | stretch of grass and the trees and the two | aths. o Well, all around_this space, in the form of a triangle, on tribunes efected for their comfort, were gathered yesterday after- noon these thousands that have been re- ferred to. They filled all the liberal space that had been provided for them; filled it completely, so that from the center of the triangle, or any place within the level wooded space, there was no sign of chair or tribune—only a great rising framework of bright, and, by a preponderating ma- jority, beautifully expectant faces. For | the majority were San Francisco women, | arranged—arranged like San Francisco women, to say which is to say a thing which passeth all other understanding and directly maketh Solomon ashamed. So when yon who were not there paint for yourself the dissolving pictures of this | tale of the woods presented in the life, | you must frame it as you have rarely seen pictures framed. To theright of the lawn | which is to be the theater—the right as you approach it from the gate of the heights — the tribune has its greatest length, A shorter arm stretches to the left. The line of the triangle to meet these two is broken by the wooden structure men- tioned, so that the spectators there are less favored and comparatively few. In the long stretch to the right fully two- | thirds of the whole number are seated, and | toward these the players pose. Over this inspiring frame of bright faces and summer costumes, rising in its out- ward edge some ten feet above the inner edge that has its feet upon the grass, yon must allow the grateful shadows of the trees to rest and then to shift and change and sharp high light of sunlight to touch at places where the sun breaks through, which, however embarrassing to the in- dividual that sits here or there, is telling as a picture-maker. On the seats of the upper and outer ex- tremity, perhaps a liitle beyond the in- fluence of the trees, you may place a brightly colored parasol or two. The Cliff House train has brought its last laggardi—a couple of hundred of them. They are late. They work into the last remaining crevices of the crowd. The frame is complete. An orchestra occupying a place on the lawn level, midway between the Jonger stretch of tribumnes, and close to it, has played a fitting something—something of the woods. Then from somewhere back of the hedges come the first figures of the many-sided pictures of Shakespeare's ‘As You Like It.” Trooping through these woods, uncon- scious of the great frame of eager lookers- | on, comes Orlando with his love-sick | rhymes te pin upon the trees; comes Rosa- lind with her airy grace and beauty, and another love as many fathoms_deep as the bay of Portugal; comes Celia, with maiden’s delicacy and that “innocence that hath a privil in ber to dignify with jests’; | comes Jaques, who met a fool in the forest—a motley fool; comes Touchstone, ‘‘a rare fellow, my lord, good atanything and yet afool’’; comes Audrey—the gods ive her joy. With a company of players equal to an ideal representation of this ideal pastoral, the setting nature’s own as Shakespeare painted it—what would you have? Mr. Sutro’s private park served thus in the whlch come Orlando and his faithful old servant Adam, strolling: In the second act the same scene represents the lJawn be- fore the Duke's palace, over which Rosalind and Celia move in the merriment of their perfect content, and Touchstone comes with his quips and byplays, and Orlando comes again to challenge the wrestler, and where he triFs the wrestler up and traps the heart of Rosalind in_so doing. The third scene, according to the books, 15 Jaid in an apartment of the palace, but yesterday the wooded lawn of Mr. Sutro’s park stood for it also. For curtains can- not be drawn over much of a man’s pri- vate park. So with the first scene of the second act, which is laid at Oliver’s house, but which fits very well to the woods, however. ‘With the&econd scene of the second act houses are done with in the play, for Rosa- lind and Celia, Touchstone and Adam, banished by the Duke, have reached the forest of Arden, and there they remain and the action of the play moves naturally through the four succeeding acts in its shadow. There they find the banished Duke, the melancholy Jaques and the merry forest- ers; there Orlando follows them, and there come and go all the amusing shepherd folk, Audrey and Pheebe and their turnip- eating lovers, and there finally virtue finds its own and lovers are parceled out to iovers in that remarkably sweeping fash- ion, such as is calculated to make and has made for centuries all lovers like it. * ‘The area or theater for the movement of the actors was large, and they moved over it with the natural freedom that gave the touch of nature to all that they did. No 8 :&zc properties were used, save a bit of log and a cloak or two spread upon the grass, and upon which the players had occasion to recline, The exits and entrances, as seen from the tribunes toward which the actors played, were naturally and easily made, the hedges at the music-stand forming a screen behind which they retired, the music-stand itself offering the uses of a greenroom. Altogether the piece moved perfectly in its outdoor setting, and, 1f you like it that way, where you could not hear the de- lightful lines, perhaps—you who were there—why, nothing could be suggested that might improve upon yesterday’s **As You Like It” out of doors. Did you like it? Was it as you like 1t? e — THE PLAY. A Critical Study of the Ingenlous Characters. There were no garish modern stage effects yesterday afternoon to detract from the poetry of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.’ Everything was au naturel. The green grass under foot and the sun- light flickering through the trees over- head were just such surroundings as must have existed in the old French forest where Bhakespeare laid his scenes. The stage was a wide stretch of lawn, wooded enough to give a sylvan effect, irst act as Oliver’s orchard, through | was a high hedge, behind which the per- they were not ‘‘on.”’ This encircling of the stage shut off the wind so that the zephyrs that played about the mimic Forest of Arden were of the gentlést desgription. Just in front of the stage the musicians were stationed, and veovle at first were inclined to say that the Wagnerian idea of an invisible orchestra would have added to the illusion of the forest glade. When the glee club sang, however, the necessity of having the musicians in the front be- came np{;arem. If the orghestra had been hidden behind the hedee the singers, in order to face the conductor, would have been under the painful necessity of turn- ing their backs upon the grand stand. There was no curtain to go up, but Adam and Orlando took the stageat the hour ad- vertised with commendable punctuality. W. G. Beach looked the romantic lover very much to the life. He was scarceiy made up, but his locks and his gestures were all that nine-tenths of the audience were able to enjoy during the opening scene. theater; its acoustic properties are not all | they might be, even at ihe best of times, | and for the first twenty minutes of “As You Like It” there was a continual stir among the vast audience, made by late- comers seeking their seats. By the close of the wrestling scene mat- ters were quieting down again and aften- tion was concentrated on the stage. Miss Coghlan, the Rosalind, bore the trying light of day well and she looked slimmer ou the forest stage than she does bLefore the footlights at the Columbia. Miss Pauline French, the tall, slender Celia, attracted attention from the moment she appeared, for she was as fresh and free from artifice as the natural stage on which she was treading. Later on there was scarcely a man or woman in the audience who had not pro- nounced her an actress by the grace of heaven—one that, like a'poet, is born and not made—for 1t was the first time that this remarkable’ young woman, who bore off so many of the honors of a remarkable performance, had ever appeared on any stage. The ‘‘co-mates and brothers in exile” of the banishea Duke who dwelt in the forest of Arden were the following members of the University of California Glee Club: B. G. Somers, C. R.Morse, T. N. Blakewell, C. A. Elston, R. J. Russ, 0. T, Wede- meyer, G. H. Whipple, 8. L. Rawlings, F. P. Taylor, T. A.Smith, F. 8. Knight, H. S. Symmes, Temple Smith, J. P. Hutch- ins, D. Hutchinson, H. P. Veeder, C. H. Harwood, R. H. Parson, C. E. Parcell, W. B. King. £ Their singing at the beginning of the second act aroused the first warm round of applause, for one reason because they sang very well and for another because there were many peovle situated too far away to hear the dialogue distinctly who could hear and enjoy the singing. Normal McGregor acted the part of the banished Duke with dlgrptv and ease, amd C. A. Deane as Amiens spoke his lines clearly and well. The stage was so wide that the perform- ers had a good deal of latitude to roam about and they arranged matters so as to give the people all round a taste of their uality. TheDuke and his foresters, when they were on, generally kept to the left, while Rosalind and Celia gravitated more to the right of the house. The scene where the two cousins and Touchstone entered tired out from their journey was a charming one. Rosalind, with her “swashing and martial outside,’” finding it in her heart to disgrace her man’s apparel and cry like a woman, and Celia, with her wind-blown hair and flushed cheeks, acted fatigue so naturally that pe_osle almost forgot it was acting and pitied them. Stockwell’s Touchstone was one of the o] 1 Grand stands had been erected almost completely around it, and the background | formers retired from the public gaze when | That is the drawback of the forest asa | ideal features of the play. He wore the motley so well that it was impossible to say whether he was a mere coarse fool dent or whether he was a philosopher mas- | querading in the motley. His appearance was also an ideal one for ihe part of | Touchstone. In all the woodland scenes W. G. Beach made a graceful, manly Orlando. He was particularly good in the scene with Jacques, | when he parries that cynical philosopher’s | questioning with neat epigrams. Miss | Coghlan emphasized the gay and sprightly side of Rosalind’s character. For instance, when she hears that Orlando is in the forest and exclaims, *‘Alas, the day, what appearing before Orlando in such a guise (it was before the days of bloomers). Miss Coghlan, on the contrary, raised a genial langh by seeming to be full of mischievous fun at the idea of appearing before her lover in doublet and hose. Miss Coghlan was at her best in the scenes where she was acting the pert boy with the love-lorn Orlando. There was | plenty of vim in her impersonation, and her energy never flagged, though at times she grew a trifle stagey and studied for a | performance *‘ander the greenwood tree. It would scarcely be fair to find fault with Miss Maud Winter for being too pretty to make an ideal Audrey, though | she was over good looking for that turnip- | eating wench; however she atoned for this by acting the part in a delightfully gro- | tesque may. Miss Freda Gallick wasa | plump and pleasing littie shiepherdess, and hercoloring exactly fitted in with the de- seription given in the play of Phebe. She enunciated briliiantly, though she | might unbend a trifle more in her acting. | As for Miss Pauline French, her Celia was | so delightfully unstudied that it would be | a calumny to apply the word “acting” to the performance. “All the world’s a stage' brought C. T. Richman a good round of applause. Ap- parently the audience wanted to encore it. The part of the melancholy Jacques, how- ever, taken as a whole, did not fit its wearer quite so well, for instance, as Touchstone fitted Stockwell. Richman delivered his sarcasm and his philosophy more as if he had conned them by heart than as if the bitter thought sprang from his own inner consciousness. His acting | was never monotonous nor didactic, how- ever, and ke spoke his lines well. One or two of the minor characters were not on good speaking terms with their roles and this, combined with the absence of a prompter, caused Orlando’s wicked brother Oliver to flounder hopelessly toward the end of the last act. He was Eu!led together again in 4 few moments ¥ the rest of the company, and people at | a_ distance scarcely heard the little slip. The majority of the smaller parts were excellently filled. Hugh Fora made a good Adam; Edmund Hayes made the most of his little role of the other Jacques, and Thomas Kierns made one of the big hits of the performance by his impersona- tion of the country fellow William. Taken as a whole, **As You Like It,” by the Stockwell players, “ander the green- wood tree,” was a grand success. The cos- tumes were pretty and correct, the comedy was staged better than the best scene- vainter could have depicted it and most of the acting was memorable for its brilliancy. AL SR SAW THE SYLVAN PLAY. Names Noted in the Vast Audience at Sutro Helghts. Among the large audience to witness “As You Like It” at Sutro Heights were the following: Mrs. L. S. Adams, Miss Ella Adams, Miss Aldrich, Mr. and Mrs, C, O, Alexander, Mr. | whose shafts of wit hit the truth by acci- | 3f AS PRESENTED AT SUTRO HEIGHTS YESTERDAY AFTERNOON—THE COLLOQUY BETWEEN and Mrs. Henry F. Allen, Miss Allen, John de Witt Allen, Mrs. D. E. Allison, Mr. and Mrs. William Alvord, Miss Dorothy Ames, James F. | G. Archibald, Mr. and Mrs, W. L. Ashe, Mr. and A.D. Ayres. Mr. and Mrs. A. 8. Baldwin, Mr. and Mrs. Charles J. Bandman. Mr. and Mrs Julius s Wi Misses Barber, | ; Bandman, Mrs W illiam Barber, Misses Barber, | lace, e e wueneral W. H. L. Barnes, Misses Bates, Mr. and Mrs. Geor%e A. Berton, Mr. and Mrs. John F. Bigelow, Mr. and Mrs. T. Z, Blakeman, Miss Leontine Blakeman, Mr.and Mrs. John Bo ner, Miss Geraldine Bonner, Mr. and Mrs. E. Bowen, Miss Bowen, Mr. Blair, Miss Jennie Blair, Mrs. W. F. Bowers, Mr. Bowie, Miss Bes- sle Bowie, Mr.and Mrs. P. E. Bowles, Francis Bruguiere, Mrs. Butler, Miss Emma Butler, Byrne. m‘.ly(.‘nrey, the Misses Carroll, Miss shall 1 do with my doublet and hose,” ¥ciark, Miss Clenient, J. O'H. Cosgrave, Miss the actresses who lay stress on the | Sophie Coleman, Miss Julia W. Conner, the womanly side of the character say the | Misses Conner, Mrs, Cook, Mrs. Channing Cook, words with a sudden timid shrinking from | F. H. Coon, Mrs. C. W. Crocker, the Misses Fannie and Julia Crocker, Mr.and Mrs. John W. Cunningham, Mrs. John Currey. S Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Danforth, Miss Fannie Danforth, C.L.Davis, the Misses Davis, Mrs. Horace Davis, Miss Sarah Dean, Mrs. Willis Davis, Dr. and Mrs. Henry B. de Mervilie, Mrs. and 3iss Mabel de Noon, Mrs. Eugene W. Deu- prey, Mrs. Henry L. Dodge, the Misses Dore. Mrs. L. P. Drexler, R. M Duperu. Mrs. George Easton, Mrs. and Mrs. Charlotte Ellinwood, R. M. Eyre. {amie and Edith Find- E. Fisher, J. A. Folger, . Sands W. Forman, Mrs. R. ertrude Forman. James R. Garniss, Miss Laura s Lottie Gashwiler, Mr. and Mrs. ss Lucia Gere, Mrs. H. Gibbons bons, Morton Gibbons, Mrs. James M. Goew Belle Grant, Miss Fannie Grant, Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Green,’ Misses Millie snd Alice Greene- baum, Mis$ Gurke, Miss C. V. Gummer, Miss Willigm M. Gwin. Mr. and Mrs. John C. Hayes, Mrs. . Hellman, Miss Hellman, Mr. and Mrs. Barciay Henley, Mrs. Malcolm Henry, Miss Hillyer, Southard Hoffman, Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Hooper, the Misses Alice and Jessie Hooper, Mrs. W. B. Hooper, Miss Rose Hooper, the Mitses Beeand Ethel Hooper, Mr. and Mrs. A. P. Hotaling, H. B. Houghton, Miss Houghfon, Miss Clara Hunt- ington, Mrs. H. E. Huntington, Miss Mattie Hutch{nson, the Misses Hush, Mrs. M. Hyman, Miss Agnes flyman, Miss Sadie Hyman, J. H. N. Irwin, Miss Ives. Stanley Jackson, Colonel and Mrs. J. P. Jack- son, Mr. and Mrs. Paul R. Jarboe, Misses Jol- liffe, Mr. Owens. Clarles N. Keeney, Miss Ethel Keeney, Mrs. H. 8. King, Mrs. W. 1. Kip, Misses Kip, Mrs. M. A. Kittle, 3iss Kohler, Mrs. Kohler. Walter G. Landers, 3ir. and Mrs. John Lan- ders, Mr._and_Mrs. J. P. Langhorne, Mrs. G. L. Lanéing, Mrs. Lansing Sr., Miss Lillie Lawler, Eugene Lens, Mrs. F. B. Lewis, Mrs. and Miss Lugsden, Miss Mabel Love, Mr. and Mrs. Mans- field Lovell. Mr. and Mrs. Will Magee, Mr. and Mrs, Tom Magee, Mr.and Mrs. George W. MoNear, Fred W. McNear, Miss Eva Maynard, Miss Harriet Mason, Edward McAfee, Lieutenant Maus, M and Mrs. Avery McCerthy, Waiter Mc Andrew McCreary, Tom McGrew, J. C. Mc Miss McKee, Sam Bell MeKee, Mr. and Mr P. McLennan, Mrs. and Miss Mamie McMuilin, Misses Alice'and Eaith Merry, E. T. Messer: smith, Colonel and Mrs. Middleion, Mr., and Mrs. L. T. Monteagle, Miss F. S Moody, Misses Moody, Mrs, A. D. Moore, Misses Moore, Mrs. A. 1. Moulder, Miss' Louisé and Miss Charlotie Moulder. Miss Mullins, Miss Maud Mullins. Mr. and Mrs. James Otis, Frank L. Owen, Mr. Orms, Robert Oxnard. Mr. and Mrs. Cutler Paige, 8, C. Pardee, Mr. and Mrs. Fred M. Pickering, 1. L. Parker, Touis B. Parrott, Mrs. B. Paxton, Mr, and Mrs. Henry Payot,- James D. Phelan, Mrs. Ira Plerce, Willis Polk, Mr. and Mrs. X. B. Pond, Mrs. 1 Lawrence Poole, 8. Clark Porter, W. B. Pringlo. W. B. Randol, C. C. V. Reeve, Ford Rets, Dr. and Mrs. Luke Robinson, Misk Lits Robinson, Henry C. Rodgers, Mrs. E. Warren Runyon, A. B. Russell. Mr. ana Mrs. H, Schussler, Misses Alice and Laura Schussler, Mr, and Mfs, A, Schwabaoher, Miss Jenuie Schwabaoher, My, and Mrs, George Searle, Mr. aud Mra, Jawmes . Soarie, B, 0. Sos- sions Jr., Osear T, Sewell, My, and Ass. Charles H. Shattuck, Miss Kvelyn Hhepard, Mr. and Mrs, H. . herwood, Hert aherweod, Samuel . Shortridge, Mra, W, K. e l-eig Ais Cora Smedberg, Colin M. Smiih, Miss Flarence V. Smith, Mrs. Sidney inigh, Misses Ethel, Helen and Bertha &mith, hurbank G, Somers, Mr. and Mrs, George W, Hpencer, Mr, and Mrs. W. C. Stadtfeld, Mr, and Mis, Charles J. Stovel, Mr. and Mrs, Frank J, 8ullivan, Mayor Sutro. Mr. and Mrs, A, By Talbo Agnes Farren, Mr. and Mrs, | ¥, Miss Goewey,Joseph D. Grant, Miss | | Mr. and Mrs. B. H. Baird, Miss Marie Baird, b Mis, F. W, Tal- | lant, Mr. and Mrs. Henry L. Tatum, Mrs. the Misses Taylor, Mr. and Mrs. M Charles F. Ta: W. Hinckle 1sce, Miss Romie Wallace, M and Mrs. Wood, Miss El worth, Miss Hele: In 1893 43,685,17¢ HEALTH LAWS. DAILY. Dyspepsia and hot bread is an unhappy combination. * Dyspepsia and fats don’t coalesce. * % Dyspepsia’s greatest enemy is Joy's Vegetable Sarsaparilla. - # When you suffer from dyspepsia eat slowly. o When you suffer from dyspensia eat just enough food to comfortably fill the stofn- ach. Eat often. * Don’t take very hot or cold drinks if you have dyspepsia. e TUse Joy’s Vegetable Sarsaparilla three times daily and follow bottle directions. 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