The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 22, 1903, Page 18

faith! And thank iss Harned last been puz- r her else. but one mp- st the lan it is, likeness than n fact has lit. Still, it's a the brilliant looked like once upon & Harned sister to meetir Vi her. Harned’s personalities 1 give, evening but the in the Tivoli's the Wednesday 1 an all- f the little play’ gers’ bene evening, both free, and The Call Margaret Anglin”—the essing-room the Columbia s labeled. opened of impulse was eyes. It was of the trayful of dazzle of the mirror e (_‘ electric lights, nor the trinketry, but the f the actress her smile nrulhor nd altogether I felt e in out of the It was when Miss Harned began to however, that the Coghlan mem- ory began to obsess. The dancing gray eves, I got their witty sparkle at nd through the mirror, doubt- But where before had I generous habit that almost masculine less helped found that impulsive, of expression, breadth of outlook, that racy humor? “This is your first visit to California, Miss Harned?” I began—and felt de- lightfully conscious immediately that the intérview would take care of itself whatever I said. “Since I was grown up,” the actress replied. “T was here with Mr. Sothern in ‘Captain Lettarblair’ ten years ago— years before I w married to him. “How is Mr. Sothern?” “Not so well—poor dear. The wire of beard in ‘“The Proud Prince’ caught lip and somehow poisoned it.” The little frown of anxiety that accompan- fed this soon melted away into Mrs. Sothern’s characteristic “set fair” ex- sion, and she gaid: “Mr. Sothern enjoyed his last visit here so much.” “When does he come again?” “He may bring ‘The Proud Prince’ in the spring.” “We shall like 1t?” 1 don’t see why not. But—" and Miss Harned turned her delicate saucy nose—that ghe was whitening—and her merry, Irish eye my way. “It's the dif- ference of opinion that makes horse- races, as Mark Twain says.” I langhed and she laughed as she sald then, just as Miss Coghlan would have said ft: “Alnt he delicious?” “But when are we to have Mr. Soth. ern in one of his own plays? I always fancy him coming out with a Stephen Phillips’ sort of poetic drama?” “He writes very well, doesn’t he?” his wife said to that. “Perhaps some day. But before then you may see me in one of my husband’s plays. After Tris’ I am to eppear in one, “The Light That Lies in Woman's Eyes’—" “That's so like Mr. Sothern—the title—" “Isn’t 1t! It's an Irish comedy, of course. I have the part of an Irish girl. Wear a red wig—" And etill T 44 not think of Rose Coghlan! “It should euit you down to the ground,” I prophesied, and remembered then that I was looking at the inter- preter of Iris, perhaps the most pecu- liarly unwholesome stage person that has come this way. “But how aiffer- ent—" “From Iris—yes” said Iris’ inter- preter. Then she shrugged her plump shoulders, and with a little sweep of the hand that took in all the legitimate and illegitimate luxury of Mrs. Bell- amy, said: “It will be a rellef atter all this—airt.” “It is dirt, then?” “Pinero doesn’t class it otherwise, but there again there's a difference of opinion. To illustrate. We played two engagements with the play in St. Louis, and during the last I received two let- ters on the same day—I get stacks of letters about it. These were both from women. One of them had seen me on my former visit and had since had a baby. She had called it Iris! The other was signed ‘A Former Admirer,’ and sald that since seeing me in the play she had lost all of her liking and respect for me!” “Which with?” - Thich g9 Bi ST, L “Well—"" the Iris began, and there was the full, maternal note of the Coghlan voice in hers, “I wouldn't call my baby after the woman. But, again, I wouldn't turn my back on some one I liked because she had played her.” “I wonder what Pinero thinks?” “You never know.” “You know him then?" “Don’t you know that Pinero stage- manages every one of his own plays on their first production here?” “Henry Miller—'The Gay Lord Quex—" " “Jok Hare brought it first to America.” “Ah, pardon! So you went to Lon- don and Mr. Pinero rehearsed your Iris? A “Exactly.” “What is he like? I've pictured him small, dark, nervous.” “Not a bit of 1t!” and Miss Harned’s rich, saucy laughter blew my little Pinero to atoms. “Why—" and she turned to the door,” his shoulders would hardly come through that door, and he is well over six feet.” “Oh1" “He is dark, though,” she ‘consoled; “his hair is black—all he has. He has a very fine, strong face and is very charming and gentle in his manner. Looks something like a farmer—out-of- door sort of look. Of course, gentle- manly—no don’t say that, it's such a haberdashy sort of word. I thought you might get a little the wrong sort of impression from my calling him a farmer, that’'s all. I was never so astonished in my life as when I first saw him.” “I am not the omly person then!” “Pinero has 2 wonderful sort of posi- tion”in England,” Miss Harned went on. “He lectures at the universities, does all sorts of things."” “But he won’t talk about his peopie?” “No,” and the little Harned mouth made a small moue at some apropos remembrance. “I asked Mr. Pinero once what became of Iris after the play closes. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I fancy she goes home to study a new part. Not too soon, I hope, though.’” \ “His stage management must be a marvel.” “It i1s. Why, those people who talk of one’s interpretation—there’s hardly the quiver of an eyelash in a Pinero play that he has not thought out and insists upon! He is tremendously pre- cise. They tell comical tales of it sometimes. There is a butler in one of his plays who has to place a dish on a table. At rehearsal the bptler asked him where to put the plate. ‘Here,’ said Pinero, indicating the spot,” and Miss Harned illustrated with her hand- glass. “But he corrected himself then and saild: ‘No, it would be better here,’” and the actress moved the mirror a fraction of an inch nearer the cold cream. “That is Mr. Pinero, only slightly caricatured, I give you my word.” “No wonder he is the most success- ful of modern dramatists.” “No wonder,” Miss Harned echoed. “Bverything in his plays is the result of the most intense thought. Have you noticed sometimes his repetition of a phrase—you won't notice it in the audience, but in reading the plays? That, in constant playing of them, sometimes gets on one’'s nerves. One feels the repetition must be noticeable to the audience. I suggested once to Boucicault—who is almost Pinero—and looks after his plays in New York, that we should cut a few of these phrases in Iris’ ‘Not a word,’ Boucicault in- sisted. And he was Y ““Maeterlinck is very fond of the same sort of parallelism, you remember?” I recalled. “It is extremely common, of course, in every-day conversation. And one finds the parallel line in all art. Pinero, in using it, is evidently well aware of its emphatic value.” “Pinero sald a curious thing to Froh- man while I was over there—that if he had to begin again he would like to begin in America.” “That is curious in the light of his maturest choice of subject—the decad- ent in all his variety—" “Oh, there are Irises everywhere—"" “But fewer here—"" “Who knows?" She roge then, with a last rosy pat on her little upper lip—Maggie's cue. Her maid, a slim, dark, adoring creat- ure, here brought out the first “Iris” gown, a thing of net, spangles and flowers—dream number ome. With adroit hands the girl garbed Miss Harned's shapely lengths in the dream, then began to adorn her further with Jewels. “‘These are the bane of Maggle's life— aren’t they?” the actress smiled up at her maid, fitting & dazzling tlara to her bronze gold halo. The maid said feelingly, “yes,” as she clasped a “dog collar” of pearls and diamonds round Miss Harned's round throat. “But—they’re not real, of course?” I asked. One may, of an actress. “They are—unfortunately, Maggie would say,” the actress said simply— “that is, most of them.” It was provincial, of course, but I couldn’t restrain a small “Oh!"” There ‘was a king’s ransom on the figure be- , fore me, a life’s leisure, freedom, all ’ the little things one wants. And be- = i —— —e — o+ VIRGINIA HARNED HAS WORDS OF PRAISE FOR PINERO'S SKILL, BUT THE LEADING CHARACTER IN “IRIS" HAS NO CHARMS FOR THE TALENTED ACTRESS. EXPRESS HER OPINION. “DIRT” 1S THE WORD SHE USES TO sides the things themselves were so exquisite!—great, cocvl pearls like sea- flowers, faintly rose; sapphires tenderly blue as angel eyes; diamonds as lovel as the young dews of a May morning. They were in her hair, at her throat, all over her corsage, and there was a trayful of rings besides. Miss Harned showed me some of these and smiled softly as she said: “Mr. Sothern gen- erally sends me a ring when he feels lonely.” Mr. Sothern must “feel lonely” quite often, I thought as the call came for Miss Harned's first act. Then she returned, and during the long wait we got to “Iris” again, and “Iris,” and again “Iris.” “What should you ‘subhead’ ~Iris,’ if you had to?” I asked. “The tragedy of a weak woman, I suppose,” the actress replied. “She is weak. That's her tragedy. She has no backbone. She would have been all right if things had gone fortunately with her—" “All of us would—"" “Pinero to me has made one big mis- take—he wouldn’t truckle to the con- ventions—in not telling before the last act that Irls suffers poverty for three years before submitting to Maldonado. Her suffering is not made clear, In ‘Tess,’ you remember, Tess is shown in her poverty. She has therefore your sympathy in her fall.” “But Tess, of course, did not have a ‘few pounds a week'—"" i “No, but to Iris that was nothing—"" “I think the construction of ‘Iris’ throughout by no means equals that of ‘The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.’'” “No, Pinero has thrown all sorts of conventions to the winds here,” Miss Harned agreed. “Those curtains! They gave Mrs. Campbell fits when she saw them. You know her. You know her funny way of putting things. That dark scene with Trenwith and Iris—" On second thoughts what Mrs. Camp- bell sald about the dark scene shall go into the next edition. “But what's the moral of the play to you?—I'm not contending for any moral, but your press agent insists on several—" I put it. “There are several—lessons, I should say rather. #s that old men like the lamented Béllamy have no right to forbid a widow of 26 to remarry. Oh, there are lessons all over the shop to me. It annoys me to hear the play compared with ‘Sappho’ and ‘Zaza.’ ‘Where’s the moral there? Both women end up happily—at least in the Ameri- can plays. ' Iris gets it all round.” “But what's the moral for a woman like Iris?” “There isn't any, of course. She’s born without the moral sense, like some men. But do you notice tHat it is only when she becomes poor that it begins to offend? Of course, she's living with Trenwith in Switzerland, but her friends are all round her there—the money makes a vast difference in the sin, I'm afraid. You said that Iris was intensely false in your critique—" Miss Harned's tone was argumentative, “Does it strike you that she never tells a lie during the whole course of the play?” “No, it has not done so.” “She tells Maldonado she does not love him even when she promises to marry him, then she writes to him im- mediately when she elects to go with Trenwith.” “But the effect of her actions—she is absolutely truthful you say, but for five minutes—is that of entire falsity.” / Then § suggested: “It would have been supremely interesting if Pinero had made Iris end well, as Irises do end well not infrequently. Like Lord Quex —a person of several pasts.” “That he would hardly dare to do,” Miss Harned advanced. “I remember playing a plece of Sardou’s, ‘Spiritisme.” Bernhardt played it before me, and my only consolation is that I played it five weeks to her two! But that was the plot. The wife sinned and the husband took her back. However, he was a spiritualist and thought that she had been dead in the meantime! Even so, the play wouldn't go." “Maldonado really shows off more de- cently in a. sense than Trenwith— though his rampant animalism dis- counts most of the sacrifice he would be supposed to make in marrying Iris,” I suggest. “Yes, why does Trenwith throw her over? Yet he would not dare—"" “Tanqueray dares—" “And the result— Oh, it's a pretty hopeless business. Yet it does set peo- ple thinking. One lesson, I think, is that it id best to begin by being gen- erous to yourself. Iris’ troubles come largely through her generosity to oth- ers. She uses Maldonado’s first check to help some one else.” “The differing criticisms must amuse you? Where did the play go best?” “New York and Chicago. The funny critics, of course, slated it. And they are very funny, some.of them. You cannot but laugh, particularly when it's about some one else! But I think a Pinero play, written by a man who never slights a letter of his work, who is master of his art, ought to be treated in a dignified way.” “You like to play {n problem plays?” “I ltke to do eve ng,” Miss Harned sald, in her big, vital way. “One can- not be an artist and confine oneself wholly to one vein of work. Look at the older actors. They did every- thing—Maggle’s had a letter from home, I know it from her pink nose,” she broke off, with a kind, droll glance at the girl. “I dare say Maggie could tell tales of her Missus’ nose sometimes,” I said. And to my surprise, there flashed a big, sudden tear in Mrs. Sothern’s danc- ing gray eyes and ran trickling down her delicate, saucy, lonely little nose! AL B Plays That Will Be Seen at the Local Theaters “Iris” will remain the attraction at the Columbia this week. This, the last of the Pinero plays to reach this side of the Atlantic, has probably caused more discussion than any of the much discussed plays of this master. It is here in the hands of Virginia Harned and her company, who interpret it with - admirable intelligence. Miss Harned in the title role is a sumptuous figure, and Willlam Courtnay as the lover, and Maldonado as the millionaire are prominent in the support. The piece is going with much more elan than on ‘its initial presentation here, the com- pany being then tired out with their long and fatiguing journey tro;n Den- ver. ‘Whatever the ethical merits of the play it is at least prolific of discussion, and will not fail to lntereot. . # This is the last wuk of “Ben-Hur” at the Grand Opera-house, and will mark the clauutvnev!thnmopme— — cessful engagements in the history of the house. The big picture play has proved attractive to all classes of playgoers, who have in many cases returned again and again to see it. None can wisely miss it, and in par- ticular every child should see the drama. There is a matinee on Wed- nesday, as usual, and a special matinee on Thanksgiving day. R The Tivoli closes this week tomorrow evening, when a benefit in aid of the Verdi monument fund will be given. A splendid programme has been provided for this requiem of the far-famed lit- tle opera-house. . T Sol Smith Russell’s “A Poor Relation” will be thé Alcazar's bill of the week. “The Club’s Baby"” goes to-night, and there will be a special matinee on Thanksgiving day. o Ry The California will revive to-night the old favorite, “At the Old Cross Roads.” e “Midnight in Chinatown” should at- tract the usual crowds to the Central to-morrow night. It is said to live well up to its title. Moo e, “Rubes and Roses” is still going suc- cessfully at Fischer’s, and will be re- placed a week from to-morrow night by a new burlesque from local genius, “L 0. U.” (3 et The vaudeville will be “Epicurean” to-day at the Orpheum, according to the management. The best of last week’s excellent bill will be retained. What Stage Folk Are Doing and Talk Of Some New Plays In the course of the three years dur- ing which_she has starred, Grace George has been supported by some of the best-known players in America. Among those who have appeared in her various excellent companies are Aubrey Boucicault, Ernest Hastings, Rose Coghlan, Wilton Lackaye, Max Free- man, Frank Worthing, Sheridan Block, Ralph Stuart, Grace Henderson, Vin- cent Serrano, Francis Carlisle, Annie ‘Ward Tiffany and Robert Loraine. s &= Al Leach, who is starring in “Girls ‘Will Be Girls,” recently got a request for tickets from a man whose only claim was his financial prominence. The note read: “I understand that you are & good entertainer. Please send me two seats. G. D.” Mr. Leach mailed the pasteboards with the following re- ply: “I understand that you are a prosperous merchant. Please send me $3. A. L.” He got the money. & i m-ive “The Pit,” in whbich Wilton Lackaye made his appearance at Parsons’ Thea- ter, Hartford, has fulfilled its promise of being the sensational success of the season. The audience went wild with enthusiasm and sixteen curtain calls was the record of the evening. “When the scene (the pit episode) was over,” said the Hartford Telegram, “‘one even more remarkable was enacted in front of the footlights. The crowd cheered and stood up to applaud.” Among those present at Parsons were Mrs. Frank Norris; Mr. Lanier, representing the publishers of the book; William A. Brady and several other metropolitan managers. m USiC FOlk The production of ‘Zaza" this week at the Tivoll explains in part and fur- ther sets one to wondering as to the reasons for the almost complete failure of the opera in Italy, where it was first produced in 1900. Of course, the reason given by the Tivoll artists in discus- sion of the point, even, also, by Mr. Steindorffl—the newness of the plot to ITtalian audiences—was glitteringly in- adequate. To begin with, the plot is as palpable in the opera as in the play. He who runs may read the story— whether his legs be Latin or good American. Nelther is it possible fur- ther for the farthest remove from Mrs. Leslie Carter and the rest of the Belas- co cast of “Zaza” much to befog the libretto. They did a thing or two in that line at the Tivoli the other night— but of that later. No, some other rea- son than the unfamiliarity of its story must be sought in explanation of the opera’s failure in Italy, and the produc- tion of this week is at least highly sug- gestive. There was, indeed, a small percentage of Tuesday night's audlence that took what one may imagine for a moment to be the general Italian atti- tude toward the opera. Their viewpoint will at least serve as a basis for argu- ment. With “La Tosca,” bitter, burning, ugly, painful—all things at times in its music that to music have before been forbidden; with the almost @s vivid realism of the familiar “I'Pagliacci”; with the intense dramatic thrill—in its trial scene—of “Andre Chenier”; with the passionately colored “Cavalleria Rusticana,” one has come to expect of the modern Italian some very definitely defined and strongly marked character- istics. These, musical realism, the reds, yellows and blackest blacks of the tonal palette, the plots and rhythms of the realistic drama, have indeed come to be regarded as the chief virtues of the new school. With “La Tesca” so far as the apex of the genre, the whole trend of the current effort of young Italy may be said to be in the direction of musically realizing the drama and psychology of lust, murder, torture and pain in their every-day brutality. The actual bite of the scalpel, the actual ery of the victim, the veritable thrill of murder, lust, are things sought to be portrayed in the new “verismo” gamut. In brief, the merely beautiful no longer satisfies the ear, already at- tuned to the mordant fascination of ugliness. The beast has tasted blood and blood it will have. And here is where “Zaza” comes in. To go back for a moment, the ques- tion is not at all whether the new real- istic menu is suitable for musical rep- resentation. Music is being used to de- pict these things, and who shall bound its domain? ,One may as well quarrel with the tides as with the tendency. And the “verismo” school has already given us much that is beautiful with the traditional beauty of musie, as well as with the poignant thrill of what has heretofore been known as ugliness. It is only when in a blind adoration of the new genre the public rejects any other than-the prophets of its gogpel that it is useful to protest. “Zaza's,” I believe to be a case in point. In this, his latest work, Leoncavallo has returned to the frankly twneful, semi-romantic school. There is no at- tempt at ponderous psychologizing, hy- steric thunders, passions wrung to tat- ters. The composer has left the red hair out of his score, as De Spada omitted it from her make-up the other night. He has emphasized rather the comedy and gentiment of the story, and accerited the romance, and has succeed- ed In building an opera throughout musically charming, interesting and characteristic. Best of all, perhaps, in its individual value i{s the music of the first act. Here, in the behind sceres setting of a Parislan vaudeville temple, are in- geniously interwoven the little French chansons of the “artists,” with the veritable vaudeville plunk of the ac- companiment, Zaza's and Dufresne’s drama of meeting Cascart’s faithful note, the manager's excitement, the comedy picture of Zaza's mother, the quarrel of the stars, the excitement of the company, all told in delightful musical gossip. The whole scene is handled most ingeniously, Dufresne’s cynical ballade of appreciation of Zaza perhaps its musical gem. The rest of the opera is all musically interesting—it must be owned not ififre- quently in the Leoncavallo-cum-Grieg manner, a la Mozart, in the fashion of Massenet, even according to Mr. Bach. Not that there s ever any direct plagiarism. It is only that Leoncavalln ‘wears easily for moments the motley of other men’s manners, though always with nu own individuality looking through the cap and bells. One does feel, however, a certain lack of dram- atic strength in the work, to return. It is quite easily bellevable, however, that with a fuller orchestra than the Tivoli brings to the work, and a Leslie Carter sort of temperament in the title role the tale would be different. At any rate one cannot as yet fairly judge here. One thing certain is that the opera_abounds in charming lyrics, and mh&m setting is piquant, ic, picturesque and imme- diately appealing. Concerted music is somewhat lacking, though there are a it ooy s da ehamaming few good choruses, notably the washer- woman's song at the opening of the third act. Caseart has the pick of the lyries, though Zaza and Dufresne are both well supplied. One peculiarly en- gaging and nove] episode, and here the music is of admirable tenderness and simplicity, is the scene between Zaza and Toto, the chila. But altogether the work is of excep- tional interest and only the strong bias in favor of the verismo school can ex- plain its rejection in Italy. It is the sort of thing the Opera Comique in Paris has open arms for, and there should surely be a place for “Zaza" on any modern operatic repertoire with any leaning at all to the popular ele- ment. Our local introduction to the work was not wholly fortunate. Unhappily, with Mrs. Carter’s splendiferous ap- pearance in the play, and Florénce Roberts’ hardly less dazzling setting, a certain standard of sartorial sumptu- ousnesg has imposed itself on the local mind. It is unfortunately “part of it.” One accepts readily enough the Queer of Sheba in cheesecloth trimmed wi gold paper, but Zaza in a 75-cent wrap- per—no! Never! There may be rea- song of course, ‘too—they were not in evidence—for the between-knee-and- ankle len2th of De Spada’s short skirt in her variety scene. But they were not Zaza's. The little Duchess looked much more like a little Dresden shep- herdess in her i-genu blueythan the sultry fury of the story. %d where, oh whére, were Zaza's I foned locks? Miss Barker perhaps had “hooked” them? Her make-up was certainly more apropos. Mamma, too (done splendidly by Marchesini), had hers with her. And where again were the eel-like skirt, and elegant sinful- ness of waist of the other acts? It was impossible to suspect the morals of a person in the lumpy skirt and uncom- promising waist—stern black and white —in which De Spada indulged. And really one knows that Zaza was no bet- ter than she ghould be! What do I want for 75 cemts? Well I'm not asking for the Harned gowns round the corner; but a little care and an expense so slight that it cannot be considered would have here made all the difference. It is not Miss de Spada’'s fault, but the management’s, and rather characteristic of the slackness that has somehow characterized the whole season. Otherwise the make-ups of the.cast were clever as the Tivoil not seldom shows—Gregoretti's as a vaudeville performer, Cortesi’s as a theatrical manager, Marchesini’s as the comedy mother, Karl Formes as a monologist, all these and more ddlight- fully humorous. Again, of course, De Spada lacks the dramatic force for her part, though she was pretty, piquant and tactful In the role, never trying to overstep her capacities. The rest of the cast was very adequate, notably Gregoretti's splendid Cascart. Ischierdo’s vocal re- serve was not sufficient to his need, though his Dufresne was very satis- factory on the whole. The orchestra again, this year not by half so reliable as usual, was in exceptionally good mood for its work, and Mr. Steindorff, also not lately in his usual form, is at his best in “Zaza.” To-night's hearing will be the last of the opera and the season. And it should not be forgotten that much gratitude should be going to Mr. Stein- dorft and the management for giving us thus the opportunity to hear this work on {ts first hearing in America. 09 Henry W. .Savage's English grand opera company begins a limited en- gagement at the Studebaker Theater, in Chicago, on Monday, November 1f. A new member of the company I Achille Albert!, the well-known bary- tone. Sig. Alberti, who was born In Bologna, has appeared with marked success in grand opera in Italy and France. His first important appear- ance was as Valentine in “Faust,” at the Royal Theater, in Turin, on the occasion of the special performance of “Faust,” in honor of the marriage of Prince Amadeo, the brother of the late King of Italy. Sig. Alberti came to the United' States In 1896 as a member of the Mapleson Grand Opera Company. He subsequently appeared In Mexico, where he created the role of De Serfeux in Giordano’s “Feodora.” For the past two seasons he has been the leading barytone in Mme. Scalchl’s Grand Opera Company. He will make his debut in Henry W. Savage's English Grand Opera Company as Escamillo in “Carmen.” 5o Signor di Stefani the Itallan singer (who was .vlth Tamagno in Italy), after hearing Joseph Sheehan, the temor with Henry W. Savage's English Grand Opera Company in the role of the Moor in the first English performance of “Othello,” said: “No temor, except Tamagno, ever sang ‘Othello’ -as well as this American."™ Verdl's “Othello” is the chief new opers in Mr. Savage's English grand opera rep- ertoire this season. * N “Way Down East” is now on its sixth visit to Chicago, where it has had over 200 performances, and Its re- ceipts at McVicker's Theater average 311.0.. a wnk A