The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 4, 1901, Page 18

MUCH-CRITICIZED PLAY | | _—~1 18 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, AUGUST 4, 1901 Reor > E SAN F CO ; - | INGERS s, SAN ERANCISCO CALL |l urs. DANE'S DEFENCE” ; TIVOLI OPERA S JOHN D. SPRECKELS, Proprietor. ; Address Communications to W. S. LEAKE, Manager : \ " SURPASS THEIR CLEVER SUNDAY ...... ARG i ....AUGUST 4, 1001 IS A SUCCESSFUL BUT | Publication Office..... e cldan > @ ...... Market and Third, S. F. , WORK OF LAST SEASON : 4 i THE TEACHER’S BREADTH., ; i BY BLANCHE PARTINGTON. SR BY GUISARD. 1 z e HE Eastern professcrs who have been polishing the California mind at the Berkeley | & e el e S T S Summer School have furnished our people with some food for reflection and also some ARGARET ANGLIN, Charles g s fodder for rumination. . e T haer 10 meet the Tivoli singers once again and to find the kind, clever artist folk good and even better than our | -0ld memories of them. They all re singing so well and the; so good entertainment nds. 1 am sure, too, they are | be with us, proud of the per- liking that we have for them, and 1 get nothing less than the while they are here. is in splendid trim, more than e fine artist, singer and actor as e known him. Even to his make- e thorough artist, and his cos- uitable and thor- ue. Amonasro is a s a picture, and who that can forget his Tago? Another rsonage is Augusto Dado, | who has an excellent stage | and dramatic instinct. He also | spicuously artistic singer, and will | = opportunity to show fully what he the “Mefistofele” of Boito, soon en and one of the big features -ason. His Ramphis is notably | ( presence r Russo is of those who show a rked improvement in thelr work since ¥ The clever singer, while losing | none of the spirit and ease always asso- ciated with his work, has broadened, mel- Jowed and gained considerably inartistry. | His volce, too, is fuller, but his control is | greater ¥and he no longer holds on to the | high note for the mere fun of seeing how | long he can, though there is plenty he | still does for the mere fun-of it, witness his performance of the Duke of Mantua on | evening. ' But with all his fauits | him still, and, besides, he fully | on Thursday for his Tuesday | | evenirg monkeying with his Highness of | Mantus. Then there's Ferrari, who, bar- ring his tremoio (which he left behind the | scenes a time or two in “Rigoletto”), has | a really splendid barytone and can render | more than one part very cleverly. His Rigoletto is perhaps the best of his big | roles, but his Barber comes a close second. | Castellano’s voice is not so pleasing. It | §s hard, though bright—probably placed | too far forward—but he is earnest and in- | telligent in his work. Nicolini’s smooth, | eweet basso is a useful volce, and his| brigand, Sparafucile, i= decidedly good | work. This week he will sing the chap- | lajn’s part in “Lucia,” one of his best | efforts. LY S ep. e Oh, Collamarini, pretty Collamarini, how could you get so fatyin one short | year? There are ways, you, know, and we | are distinctly averse to having our pretty Carmen spoiled in the drawing? What a voice it is! Of all singers in the company Collamarini is the most lavishly gifted by | nature, and by sheer force of tempera- | ment almost persuades one into accept- | ing all she does. But she is not a tithe | of what she might be ‘with her gifts. She does not breathe ~properly and | sometimes forces that beautiful voice | of hers until one trembles for its fu-| ture; yvet the next ‘moment sings in so wonderful fashion that one forgives everything. Barbareschl is a charming singer, a charming woman. She has a | strong, artistic instinct and gave us a de- | lightful Ajda this week. Her voice is | pure, sweet and sympathetic as we found | it last year, and she is a very welcome | member of the company. Repetto, too, | Is in good voice, and the dainty little | singer trills and runs with the same fluent sweetness that we have always as- ed with her work. She is another ¢ pleasing personality and an indis- | pensable member of the company. Pole- | tini is another clever artist we are glad to welcome again—one we are always sure of and one whose modest bearing wins | liking at once. Mr. Steindorff, the man at the helm, is stili another acquisition of the year and bas proven himself a capable, efficient condvctor. He will give us this week “Il Trovatore” and “Lucia.” Ao Mr. Samuel Adelstein sends me this week | a cherming little monograph on the man- dolin hat he titles “Mandolin Memories and that concerns itself with the history, characteristics and possibilities of the in- strument in question, together with a brief account of its present standing in the various musical communities. I must | confess that the mandolin has mot hith- erto appealed to me, that I have regarded | Paris opinion, <+ THE NEW BASSO OF THE OP- 1 ERA COMPANY AT THE TIV- | OLL | - x its haunts with a strenuous indugtry worthy of a better cause. Mr. Adelstein’s monograph, however, rather persuades to the bejlef that there is more in the mat- ter than meets the ear—than has so far met mine at any rate—and that possibly there is something approaching genuine | music to be obtained from the mandolin and its kind. “Mandolin Memories” chiefly with the modern instruments of the plectrum family and is gen- erously {ilustrated with pictures of the various instruments, from the Neapolitan } mandolin to the Japanese samisen. The anclent lute, reminiscent of perfumed Arabian gardens, large-eyed houris and love in idleness, is also pictured, with the Hawallan ukelele, Chinese gekken and | Spanish Bandurria. Portraits of famous | mandolinists are also given, and a few | characteristic groups of players. After reminding his readers that Berlioz | included the mandolin in his list of legiti- | mate instruments, that Mozart wrote a | mandolin accompaniment for his “Deh | Vieni,” that the serenade in Verdi's “Otello” is written for mandolins, and | various other mandolin claims to respect- ful consideration, the author tells in in- teresting fashion what is being done to- day by composers for and performers on | the instrument. The center of activity is Italy, where the Circolo Mandolinisti is strongly in evidence. In the Royal Circolo Mandolinisti Regina Margherita (the de- lightful leisureliness of the title!), besides about twenty-six performers on the man- concerns f{tself dolin, mandola (tenor mandolin) and mod- |. ern lute or mandoloncello—answering to the violoncello—are to be found a pianist, | four guitarists, a kettledrummer and a | violonicellist, and the efféct obtained 1s | sald to be distinctly beautiful. On the | quartet of mandolins (first and second | mandolins, mandola and lute) it is no in- | frequent ghing to play the Beethoven and Haydn string quartets, of which Mr. Adelstein says enthusiastically that ‘“one can scarcely believe that such music may be performed with such charming effect on these instruments.” There is much more that is Interesting in the booklet, which is picturesquely and clearly written and put up in dainty fash- | jon by the Joseph Winterburn Company of San Francisco. . A pleasant probabllity of the next Grau grand opera season here in November is the glving of Massenet's “Manon Les« caut,” with a further pleasure of hearing the title role sung by a former San Fran- cisco stnger, Sybil Sanderson. Miss San- derson has not been heard here for many years and, if I mistake not, “Manon” never, zand the conjunction, according to is something to delight. Perbaps of all singers who have come out of California Miss Sanderson is the most famous. Her recention in Paris on her appearance there, now some years ago, was altogether exceptional, and her sub- sequent artistic career most brilliant. Massenet and Saint-Saens were her ard- ent admirers, and besides *Manon” she achieved renown in the ‘‘Enchantress” : and “Phryne.” She easily veaches G in |alt, and there is no doubt as to her ar- | tistry, beawty and temperament. Miss Sandergon will be first heard in her na- | tive city during the present tour, Other | singers already engaged by Mr. Grau are | Lilli Lehmann, Anton Van Rooy and | Edouard de Reszke. —-— Lady of the House—If you are such a | skillful typewriter as-wou say you are, how ;i! it that you cannot find employment? Perambulating Pete (mournfully)—Well, | ¥you see, lady, my name’s Mr. Jesse Dar- lin’, an’ all the men are afraid to hire me it as one of the least musical” tru- for fear of gettin’ into trouble wid their ments, and that I have heretofore avoided | wives er sweethearts.—Brooklyn Eagle. Professor James Earl Russell of Columbia, whose specialty is pedagogy, in his clos- ingyaddress to the school told the teachers, who were there to learn, that their profession is an ensmalling, narrowing and shriveling sort of calling, the most narrow-minded and bigoted of all vocations. He attributed this to their contact with children, and is said to have made a plea for a broader, wider, more expansive and spreading sort of training, to remedy the narrowness and bigotry of the profession. : , We are not inclined to entirely agree with Professor James Earl Russell, although he hails from Columbia. There are those who think that the teacher works in a line that brings a broader and more tolerant knowledge of human nature than any other. If the proper study of mankind is man, and if the injunction “man, know thyself,” is by authority, the teacher more than any other is in contact with the fountain of knowledge. The child is father to the man, and in tle study of the child, the guidance of its intellectual development and the formation of its character the teacher is constantly studying the alphabet and the first book of human nature. It must not be forgotten that in every step toward an education the teacher, be he in the kindergarten or in a university faculty, is all the time the same distance in advance of the pupil. The teacher has ac- quired knowledge to impart, and the pupil the task of its acquisition. A rollcall of the broadest men in the history of the United States is answered most frequently by the names of teachers. Noah Webster, Agassiz, Mann, Silliman, Andrew D. White, Draper, Eliot, Le Conte, Jordan, Wheeler, Harper and Hadley occur at once as examples of the broadenigg effect of that profes- sion which Professor Riissell denounces as the narrowest and most bigoted. Socrates was a teacher, and Aristotle, the tutor of Alexander and Ptolemy Soter, his half brother, was so broad that he left a path as wide as all the universe, down which man has passed in a procession, larrying the lamp of learning, until its ranks have widened and knowledge fills all ‘the space that spreads between the farthest stars. Nature was a terror to the theologian and its plain ways were fearful mystery, until the teacher lifted the veil and taught mankind that there is nothing supernatural, but all that is, in the heavens above and the earth below and in'the waters under the sea, is natural. It is not saying too much to declare that all knowledge that is began with that “looking down” to childhood and youth, by the feacher, which Professor Russell so much deplores as the cause of narrowness and bigotry in the teacher. Froebel and Pestalozzi looked down into the nature of the young and acquired knowledge of how to impart knowledge. The great Teacher, hearing the predecessor of Professor.Russell chide the children and tell them to keep still or go away, said “Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the king- dom of heaven.” He was looking down, but it ‘was into that which mirrors all that is and is to be. TOO MUCH TALK. ©O matter what one’s sympathy may be, the people generally will approve the caution by the War Department to Captain Schley to clap a stopper on his jaw tackle. His distinguished father, the rear admiral, has set the young captain an example which he will follow with credit to himself. The elder Schley has been reticent as to his affairs throughout the prolonged controversy over the sea fight at Santiagq. The same may be said of Rear Admiral Sampson. The country was divided into rival camps upen the issue between them, and their respective champions,wise and otherwise, were buttering parsnips with hard words ehough so that no indulgence in that pastime was required of the principals. For this, or for the reason that each rear admiral is aware that interminable talk: will not settle anything, they have both been commendably prudent, and very economical of conversation about the issue between them. Perhaps the result of the investigation will show that as the superior officer of the fleet Sampson was not to be ignored, though his tarry top lights were not powder-grimed when the action was over, and that Schley, in a fighting place; did his duty, like a brave sailor. Young Schley came near reducing the affair to the plane of a modern prize-fighter’s jaw- ing match, in which the principals wear out each other gnd the public by blows on each other’s verbal solar plexus, until all interest in the actual battle is abandoned. 3 The dispute which has topsy-turveyed the Navy Department is not between ring cham- pions, and Historian Maclay made a mistake in using the language suitable to the trainer of the champion bantam weight for a fistic battle with another bantam, ambitious to spar himself into the belt. Not only official decorum but public propriety demands that the question be formally tried by the court appointed for that purpose, and its decision will be respected. The attempt of yellow and sensational journalism to advertise itself by using Schley as a sandwich man should be resented by that officer and his friends. The scheme to flood the President with letters in Schley’s favor was the most injurious that could have been devised. The President would be guilty of an extreme indelicacy if he interfered in any way with the court that is try the cause. Such interference would vitiate a decision if in Schley’s favor, and to attempt it is a confession that his cause has not sufficient merit to stand alone, but must depend upon the intervention of executive power. An enemy of Schley could not have devised'a plan more hurtful to him. Because of it he is entitled to the sympathy of the people, since the most helpless man on earth is the one who is a victim of fool friends and the favor of sensational journalism. When the case opens, and as the trial proceeds, the facts brought out will be given to the country and will equip it for judg: ment as to the merits of the dispute. Until then it is well to be content and leave the matter in the hands of the court which Schley has wisely demanded. THE LITERARY LIFE. TSCUSSIONS upon the lives and works of the late Sir Walter Besant and Robert Bu- chanan have brought to light the fact that the two authors took widely different views of literary life. To the one that life was a pastime, while to the other it seems . to have been something like a tragedy. Each attained a high degree of success, but only one was satisfied. The other regarded success itself as a kind of degradation because of the efforts he had to make to attain it. Besant wrote: “The literary life may be, I am firmly convinced, in spite of many dangers and drawbacks, by far the happiest life that the Lord has permitted man to enjoy. I say this with the greatest confidence and after considering the history of all these literary men, living or dead, whom I have known and of whom I have read.” U On the other side Buchanan said: “I say to you now. out of the fullness of my experience, that had T a son who thought of turning to literature as a means of livelihood, and whom I could not dower with independent means to keep Barabbas and the markets at bay, I would elect, were the choice mine, to save that son frot future misery by striking him dead with my own hand.” In another place he says of a literary man: “If his nature is in arms against anything that is rotten in society or in literature itself, he must be silent. Above all he must lay this solemn truth to heart, that when the world speaks well of him the world wil! demand the price of praise, and that price will possibly be his living soul.” Similar contrasts of view could be found among the workers in any department of indus~ try. There are people who would be content and cheerful under any conditions, and others who would complain in the halls of heaven. That Besant’s view of literary life in our time is more rational than that of Buchanan cannot be questioned. There has never been a time when so many people could read, when so many could afford to buy books and when authors as a class were so prosperous. Doubtless a writer who wishes to fight the world and expose what he regards as rottenness will have a good many hard knocks to take, but a fighter should not be dismayed by that fact. No one can be a reformer and at the same time lie on flowery beds of ease. The trouble with Buchanan seems to have been that he thought the world was demanding of him the _surrender of his soul when it really asked only that he should write entertainingly what the world wished to read. ! 3 . It is announced that a man named Tom Reed is to be one of the principal speakers at a cel- ebration to be held in Maine on August 15; and it is now up to the general public to guess who he is and what he was. & Jones' new play, ‘‘Mrs. Dane's Defence,” is the promising con- junction of Interests at the Columbia Theater to-morrow night. Mr. Jones, in “Mrs. Dane’s Defence,” has been among the moralities again, “‘Rebellious Susan”- wise, and appears here as special pleader for the woman in the case for the doubls morality standard. Also, as in “The Case of Rebellious Susan,” Mr. Jones succeeds in pointing his moral without injury to the adornment of his tale, no susggestion ' ¥ X R T ES + + of “art for morality’s sake” having yet been made in the connection. Naturally “Mrs. Dane's Defence” has aroused @ varlety of comment, much fa- vorable and unfavorable criticism from the Tweedledums and Tweedledees of morality as we are so far acquainted with the sclence, together with a large ad- miration for its artistic worth. As a plece of craftsmanship the play is said to be among Mr. Jones' best efforts and it has already achieved a record of an entire season’s run in New York after the same experience at Charles Wyndham's Theater in London. - . Briefly the story of the play runs thus: Mrs, Dane, a charming and beautiful young widow, with an apparently !m- peceable reputation and quite unmis- takable bank book, suddenly dawns upon the little town of Sunningwater, some- where in the south of England. She is recefved in the best and dullest socicty of the village and by her beauty and charm succeeds in rousing the enmity of the Mrs, Grundy of Sunningwater, here incarnate in the person of Mrs. Bulsom- Porter. Mrs. Bulsom-Porter has a hus- band. She is old, unbeautifuliand variovs- ly repulsive and afflicted with a conse- quent gratuitous jealousy of her husband,; a genial sort of chap who good-naturealy gives her her head in all her foliles. This pleasant leader of Sunningwater socicty becomes jealous of Mrs. Dane, to whom Mr. Bulsom-Porter has daringly ventured to pay the usual respects of the sex to a pretty and charming woman, and swears furiously to him that the newcomer has a past written all over her. Her husband turns sulky and she swears to be r-r-re- venged. Her nephew, one Rising, him- self somewhat epris in the same quar- ter, unconsciously plays into the irate lady's hands by telling her that Mrs. Dana reminds him of one Felicia Hindmarsh, whom he had met in Vienna and who was the heroine of a strange and dreadful adventure. “Ah!” says Mrs. Bulsom-Porter. ‘Without considering the possible effect of the relation, Rising tells his aunt that Felicia Hindmarsh was a governess in the Trend family; thd#t Mrs. Trend was an invalid; that Trend, clever, handsome and unscrupulous, had made love to the governess; that Felicia Hindmarsh, very young, ignorant and susceptible, had re- sponded to his overtures: that Mrs. Trend, discovering this, Xkilled herself, and Trend, who had really loved her, went mad and was now in an insane asylum in the north of England. After- ward, realizing what he has done, Ris- ing swears that Mrs. Dade is not at all like Felicla and protests without avail his full belief in her own acccunt of her- self; that she is the widow of a Mon- treal doctor, and without relatives since the death of her cousin, Lucy Allen. But the fat's in the fire, and Mrs. Bulsom-Porter spends her days and nights in industriously spreading the story in her own and Mrs. Dane's exelu- sive circle. Now it happens. that Mrs. Dane is'in- deed Felicia Hindmarsh; that there is a child, and’ that her cousin, Lucy Allen, in Canada, had given her shelter and op- portunity for a new start. After a long season of repentance deep and sincere, at the death of her cousin for immediate incitement, Felicia comes to England, de- termined to live out her unhanpy life among her own people. But the unex- pected happens and she falls in love with Lionel, the adopted son of Sir Dan- fel Carteret, a famous light of the law. Almost simultaneously with the discov- ery of her love for him and his for her comes the shock of Mrs. Bulsom-Porter's arraignment of her reputation, and she appeals for pretection and justification to Sir Daniel. Meantime the Porter virago has chartered a detective to go to Vienna, who discovers the truth about Mrs. Dane, but seeing her pitiable plight, he denies her identity with Feiicta. But Sir Dgniel, in the attempt to obtaln evidence from Mrs. Dane _herself that CLEVER ACTRESS WHO WILL AP- PEAR IN THE PLAY OF “MRS. DANE’'S DEFENCE.” 3 would infallibly establish her identity, discovers who she is In a pitiably painful scene of a cross-examination that lasts for a geeming eternity, when the woman, fighting for her love, piles lie on lie until she is caught in Imextricable confusion. Whether or not Sir Daniel forgives her or permits her marriage with his sen, whether Sunningwater society decides to open again its charitable arms to the sinner or whether Mrs. Bulsom-Porter succeeds in ridding the immaculate vil- lage of ‘this awful moral leper, Miss Anglin and Mr. Richman will tell you to- morrow evening, with the expert assist- ance of the Empire group of players— Miss Ethel Hornick, who appears as Mrs. Dane’s champion, Lady Eastney: Miss May Brooke as Mrs. Bulsom-Porter; E. J. Backus as Mr. Bulsom-Porter; Wallace Worsely as Lionel Carteret; Stanley Dark as Rising; W. H. Crompton as the anxious ecclesiastic, Canon Bonsey; Fendick, the detective; George Osbourne Jr. and Miss Margaret Dale (bless her pretty face!), as the ingenue admirer of Lionel Carteret. . & T've been saving up a Frohman story for a week or two that I think is one of the “best evers” on C. F. If it isn’t new here, it ought to be, S0 here goes. Ed Sothern wounded his foot with a Asword in the middle of a successful run last season, and was thereby laid up with a very sore toe. Frohman, naturally con- cerned for the fate of his season, inter- viewed Scthern’s doctor as to his chances of recovery. Said the medico: ¢ “I have been telling Mr. Sothern that if he will consent to have the toe am- putated he can-be about again in three days.” “Have 1t done, EQY’ said Frohman, de- lighted. “Charles,” solemnly replied Sothern, “this is my toe, and I don’t propose to have it cut off if I have to stay in bed for six months with it, play or no play, sir,” and Sothern still counts ten toes, though Frohman's vicarious enthusiasm for art remains unchanged. Oy e The August number of The Theater—a particularly bright and comprehensive dramatic magazine, by the way—contains a number of scenes from Clay M. Greene's Passion play, “Nazareth,” that is shortly to be staged in New York by William A. Brady. There are also, among other pictorial attractions, portraits of Ethel Barrymore, James Hackett, Olive May, Willlam Courtleigh and other players much in the public eye. The month’s essays and articles on cur- rent topics imclude Alfred Ayres’ usual dash of literary bitters—with “some re- cent Hamlets” for flavoring: Wilton Lackaye on the actor’s relation to a pos- sible endowed theater and a review of €lay Greene's Rassion play. Cholce candies. Townsend's. Palace Hotel* —_————————— Cal, glace fruit 50c per Ib at Townsend's* s Special information suppiled dally to buriness houses and public men by the Press Clipping Bureau (Allen’s). 510 Mont~ gomery street. Telephone Main 142 ¢ —_————— An automobile line Is to de operated between Lewes and Rehoboth, Del. for passengers to and from Cape May It gm be the first automobdile lme in that tate. ————— Are You “Of the Old World”? Everything pertaining to the New World may be easily and cheaply seen at the Pan- American Expositiony and the best way to get to Buffalo is by ‘the comfortadls traing of the Nickel Plate Road, carrying Nickel Plate Dining Cars, In which are served Amers fean Club meals from 3¢ to 3§ each. Book free, showing pictures of exposition bulldings. Hotel accommodations reserved JAY W, ADAMS, P. C. P. A, 3 Crocker building, San Franetsco, Cal. ————— Best Way to the Yosemite, The Santa Fe to Merced and stace thance via Merced Falls, Coulterville, Hazel Green, Merced Big Trees, Cascade Falls and Bridal Vell Falls, arriving at Sentinel Hotel at § the mext afternoon. This is the most popular route and the rates are the lowest, Adk at 841 Mare ket st. for particulars and folder. —_——— ™ Camp Curry, Yosemite, Introduced and maintains the mod- erate rates of §2 per day, $12 per week; loss than $40 for an eleven-day trip to Yosemite via the Big Oak Flat route, 630 Market, or Market by . Santa Fe route, 8