The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 11, 1904, Page 19

THE SAN FR. SUNDAY DECEMBER 11, 1904. “Mary Shaw in vaudeville? MARY in vaudeville!” I had said to seeing Orpheum bill- ble, my friend.” 4 any one asked me who was the t Mary Shaw. seen for which the power and spell of led even to here in the But there it was— And then T saw her sketch, “The edy for the eyes, ex- —narrowed “It is ab- and glint of gossiy For to extra- 1 s Miss Shaw much char- on in vaude- I known ! I was ‘Hedda Gabler’ I asked if I thing of Gio- of the They as too serious for s Shaw's level doubt to the red- above them. answered me: “You t such a terrific dif- diences? The per- g among them Some nights— variety audience I wouldn’t be a m ‘The Rights ain are you?” Miss Shaw re- " she looked at that you Ethically and ence has been a e. I've been so of things, you near people in 1 was nervous iiences won't be I was afraid! time to make scene to make off, and it's ine to side of course, is just an adven- venture,” she replied, ward’s, Charles Haw- an of whom Miss Shaw er strongly reminds. You get it in e warm fiber of the voice, in the mer- y ish suggestion of the face in some in the big persomal mag- then not to do , “As to vaudeville,” she went on, *“ *“The Silent System’ was something of a relief after thirty-seven weeks of “‘Ghosts!" ™ “Ghosts,” ah! ed! I echoed: ‘Ghosts’!"” Miss Shaw laughed comfortably and put it: “It was rather a draggy sort of experience. You see there were a good many one night stands during the tour. That meant, well, it was the first Ibsen that most of the places had had—" “And that meant —" “That meant the responsibility of presenting Ibsen to the big people. peo- ple of the plains, of the woods. of the great farms, of the corner grocery, all eorts of people. Curious, too,” she went on, with the thoughtful, speculative ex- pression that she most commonly wears, “the houses were always top- heavy. We couldn’t understand it. Of course, as you know, the Ibsen genre appeals most strongly to the student, who doesn’t sit downstairs. That would account for the crowding of the first gallery—always full—but how about the upper gallery?” “How did they take it, your plains fol “Deeply, seriously, throughout.,” she had to say. “It is es simple as the Bible, you know; Its meaning is un- mistakable.” “But isn't Mrs. Alving rather 4iM- cult to get over the footlights?"” “Naturally,” Miss Shaw agreed: “her form of expression is wholly repressive. She has lived through all the outward agonies of suffering. After twenty years of it one does not do this sort of thing”—delightfully absurd was the actress’ agonized grab at her chest! her upturned eyes! “In Mrs. Alving,” she continued then., “one is not dealing with outward sym- bols of emotional expression. Those, after all, if an actress is mistress of her art, are pretty simple things—say the Leslle Carter expression in Du Barry. Mrs. Alving has to be lived. I wused to wonder if it were necessary to give the same Intense exposition night after night. But you cannot help it. The dynamic power of the part simply car- ries you with it.” “Isn’'t it a little wonderful” she turned sheer on me then with, “how Ib- sen came to write four or five plays in which the heart of a woman is abso- lutely laid bare, absolutely probed to the depths—that old, llon-faced party eitting there in that hermit study of his! How did it happen? This way, surely. Ibsen was a great soclalist in his young days. The compromise, cor- ruption, ineffectiveness of the govern- ment disgusted him, and he went to the cause of it. He gaw how men thinned. flattened out under temptation and failed at need. He saw in them the eternal soft spot, wondered where it came from. Then he said to himself., ‘the woman!" He asked himself. ‘how can the woman, cased round with all sorts of restrictions, largely a bundle of the negative virtues, give to her son the great soul?” Then he sald—in his plays: ‘Release the woman!" Christ again. Open her cage. If she loves it, she'll walk back, but she'll be a free woman. And she’ll find you a thou- sand reasons for staying thers when she can have it that the jailor has never thought of! ‘Let her even sin,’ he says. But let her learn and be strong. ‘A Doll's House’ began the plays. ‘Ghosts’ is the sequel. ‘Perfectly dread- ful,’ people say about Nora Helmer leaving her home and husband. But Nora, finding in herself the liar. the thief, exiled herself until such time as she could be worthy mother to the children she had, and worthily bear others. So I read it.” “And Mrs. Alving stayed.” “Mrs. Alving stayed,” the actress re- peated. “Of course the man was dif- ferent. But Mrs. Alving did the con- ventionally moral thing—Oswald was the result. There, where she grovels on the floor before her son, lapsing into idiocy, is the magnificence of ‘Ghosts.’ Every child’s birthright is love—'what kind of a life did you give me, mother?’ he asks.” “As to ‘Rosmersholm’?” I suggested then. “Ah, we're on different ground there,” that was what I want- Thirty-seven weeks of . ENISS_ANARY SRAY » - < 3 BN L SR SR SRR A R0 TTVIARY SHAW, WHO IS APPEARING IN VAUDEVILLE AT THE ORPHEUM [ LBRONSTRUP DR Miss Shaw declared. Slowly thefh she sald: “Perhaps ‘Rosmersholm’' 1{s rather a dangerous sort of play. Wo- men know so little of themselves. One can imagine the woman on the tilting- board of things, in a sort of nervous exaltation—and it is nervous,” she in- terrupted herself to say. ‘‘American women are nervous; not emotional. Emotion is a splendid, healthy sort of thing. But ke this nervous, unbal- anced creature, unhappy with her hus- band (poor man!) and with an 1ll- digested dose of ‘Rosmersholm,’ I doubt if it will be good for her. You can’'t go along explaining the play, what its real meaning 1s. ‘Ghosts’ is different. It propounds a great, strong, primal question, and can do only good to those that see {t.” ‘ “The Lady from the Sea’?"” Miss Shaw laughed a little, and shrugged her plump shoulders to say: “Hasn't Ibsen rather fallen under hid own spell there? Isn’t he over mysti- cal, symbolic?” # ‘Maeterlinckian,’ ” I ventured. That began a discussion of the great Belgian, whom Miss Shaw most dis- ciminately admires. She picked up “The Burled Temple,” lying at her el- sea are getting our art pathic doses. And in true medi- fashion the artist-physiclans who are called upon to dlagnose the pictures for exhibition—to pass them or reject them—are of quite as many opinions as to their symptoms of worth or un- worth as are your medical men when moned in consultation—which is out the limit of human divergence. Not, however, is this jealous selection without its value, for the exhibitions hich we have been bidden within th average higher than those of previous year—so say the artist folk themselves—who ought to know. igs on these artist chaps!—they so earnest, so charmingly incon- sistent, so fond of the men who are fond of their work! But, then, that quality is not possessed solely by ar- tists—it’s & human trait implanted by Father, only highest developed among those who create things, as pictures and books and statuagry—hence must we forgive, that we be forgiven. Right on the heels of the clever ex- hibit of the Arts and Crafts at the St. cal the CLUB Francis and the fall exhibition at Hop- kins, comes the annual exhibition at the Bohemian Club, which is scheduled to continue, at stated days, until De- cember 21. Under the guldance of Charles J. Dickman, Charles Sedgwick Aiken and Frederic W. Hall—wiseacres in things artistic—the exhibit is a joy! And if you don’t belleve it just hunt up a good Bohemian and ask him for a card to the jinksroom. You'll come out convinced of two things—that the Bohemian Club is the foster-mother (or father?) of Western art, and as such entitled to the homage of the West; also that the artists have felt the thrill that encouragement gives and have fashioned better work — generally speaking—than ever before. True, there’s no Peters to lure you into a moonlight reverie, no Welch to show you a misty Marin morning, no Mc- Comas to crystallize an idyl of the darkling wood, but there are fascinat- ing things from Giuseppe Cadenasso, Maynard Dixon, C. J. Dickman, John M. Gamble, L. P. Latimer, Xavier Mar- tinez, G. A. P. Piazzoni, Matteo San- dona, H. W. Seawell, J. A. Stanton, Chris Jorgensen, J. R. Dickinson, H. R. Bloomer, J. W. Clawson, Charles D, Robinson and Charles Fonda. bow on the little table, and began to read some ominous words indicative of the passing of the dramatic epoch of Maeterlinck. “I love the divine violence of the man,” she laughed, “his lovely way of elbowing the infinities. Then, on put- ting the book down, one wonders just what were the hypotheses upon which one swam out so lightly into the un- known. Yes, I think the man is now so permeated with love for his kind that drama—essentially conflict, you know— in any conventlonal sense has become an impossible form of expression to him. He portends here a drama of hope, of joy, as ours is largely one of despair. Whether or not he will write it is another question.” I learned then that Miss Shaw halls from Boston, and thought better of Boston accordingly. She was a school- mate of Viola Allen, Georgla Cay- van, Effile Shannon, and made, like them, her debut at the famous Boston Museum. After one year Augustin Daly discovered her, and in two—owing to her good physique and voice, she modestly put it—Miss Shaw was play- ing leads with him. She was with Frohman several years, ‘“‘created” the role of Roxy in “Pudd’'nhead Wilson," loves an occasional dip into melo- drama, is immensely fond of musie, and several other Interesting things. Cell-life, we got to, and heaven knows what else. But I did not ask Miss Shaw “What's in a name?” and whether the gifted George Bernard got it from her or she from him. Nor did I ask about her real name; which is la Duchesse de Cosse-Brissac. Her husband, who died last year, was an American citizen by adoption, and a San Franciscan. pRCEy 7 WHAT THE THEATERS OFFER THE PUBLIO FOR PRESENT WEEK The Columbia will have, beginning to-morrow evening, three musical comedies in as many weeks. “A Chin- ese Honeymoon,” too recently seen and liked here to need comment, is the first; “The Blllionaire” comes next; and for the third week George Ade’s “Sultan of Suluy,” that will be the holiday produc- tion. John L. Kearney leads the cast of “A Chinese.Hox:eym.oon." An exceedingly interesting revival THE FOSTER-PARENT OF ART Among the pictures that stand out with emphasis among their fellows is Plazzonl's “Song of the Marshland,” a study in gray, whose dun foreground throws Into relief a leaden sky flecked with clouds full to maturity. On this one picture I cajoled expression from various types of artistic authority— some condemned, while others praised. As for my own humble preference I gave out my heart to its blue-skied fellow—"The Mystery of the Night.” And thus must we soliloquize with the old woman who kissed the cow—each of us to his taste. Cadenasso has three canvases that you would know in Timbuctoo as Ca- denasso’s, with their mysticism and let- tuce-like freshness—his “Early Morn- ing,” “Twilight,” and “No. 9,” which seems to have acquired a stray name. It's labeled “The Strangers,” but there’s not an animate thing within sight, or is there a puzzle hidden some- where about? His “Afterglow.” a huge, lurid sunset with a topaz sky, was alternately praised extravagantly and abused roundly; but the preponderance of opinion was that the plcture de- served a better position than the com- mittee accorded it—a nook in the half- light of a hallway. Dixon’s “Prayer” and “Evening in a Canyon” are greatly admired, the “Prayer” carrying an intensity of feel- ing—more than in anything the “Cow- boy artist” has yet shown. Dickman's “Between Showers” is a dramatic thing, with a marvelous mass of color. In truth, it would seem that there' were two good pictures in the canvas, and two that would cling close to your retina. His *“Old Monterey” and “Coast of Plcardie” carry more unity. These, like “Between Showers,” are exquisite in dash and color—*“Mon- terey” breathing much of love for a well-beloved spot. John M. Gamble’s “Desert” is a cheery song of a drear waste, with a purple haze to gladden, and a pink, opalescent glow on the mountain-top o'er yonder—and ’tis a pretty thing, this cheery song. Martinez—lucky chap—bore the first triumphal card, “Sold,” of the exhibi- tion, when on Tuesday, while the night ‘was yet young, an admirer bought “The Outcast,” a pathetic thing in low. ‘Whistlerish ~ grays, with an awful ‘weight of woe in its soul. Lucky Marti- nez, what a gay dinner must have fol- lowed at Coppa’s! d lucky Coppa! And lucky ‘friends! - - 3 BY LAURA BRIDE POWERS That “Paris la Nuit” is the gem of that well-hung west wall—tiny thing that it is. Bee it, if you love that which is subtle, suggestive, seductive. You'll need a microscope to find it. Sandona’s portraits are greatly ad- mired, as are some of H. W. Seawell's canvases, particularly his “Mission Dolores at Dusk.” Any artist who can conjure up as pocturesque a picture of our poor old mission, with that as- tounding atrocity of a brick pile beside t, ought to be publicly hugged (figura- tively, of course), as a benefactor. s s e One of the prettiest bits in the recent exhibit of the Arts and Crafts at the St. Francis was a portrait bust of Miss Elizabeth Fee, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. Fee, modeled by Miss ‘Winifred Stateler of 318 Pine street. This young sculptress has done much creditable work of late, and has exhib- ited at Hopkins. b . s . At the Bohemian Club exhibition, M. Earl Cumming and A. Putnam show some mighty clever work. A portrait panel of Maude Adams, and an ex- quisite bronze bust of Lawrence Tharp, son of Mr. and Mrs. Newton Tharp, are attracting much comment among young Cumming’s exhibits, Paderewski comes next Saturday aft- ernoon. Possibly no other pianist of this generation has aroused the ex- traordinary homage that has been aroused by the Polish virtuoso. It is many years since he was last heard here. Since, of the epoch-making plan- ists we have had Harold Bauer and Godowsky, with also Josef Hofmann, Carreno, Gabrilowitsch, De Pachmann, Fannie Bloomfleld Zeisler, Mark Ham- bourg and lesser lights. Possibly for pure poetry, as I remember it, Pade- rewski’s art ranks supreme. Yet it will have now the beautiful lyricism of Harold Bauer to stand with. The first concert wiil take place next Saturday afternoon at the Alhambra Theater. It will have the extraordinary interest of an orchestral setting. The orchestra will be under Paul Steln- dorff’s direction and will be heard In concerted numbers with the planist. Fifty men will constitute the force, and the opportunity to hear some of the plano concertos with their intended setting is one that no student or lover of music can afford to neglect. As yet Pt —p will be at the Alcazar this week in “Caprice,” in which Mrs. Fiske, then Minnie Maddern, appeared several years ago, for a run of many weeks, at the O'Farrell u}reet. hou‘u. Rose Melville, the original Sis Hop- kins, brings “Sis Hopkins” to the Call- fornia again to-night. o “Mr. Potter of Texas” will be the new bill at the Majestic, with J. H. Gil- mour in the leading role. PR “In Dahomey” contifiues at the Grand Opera-house this week, and is one of the most deservedly popular bills seen there for long. . eik.e The Tivoll “King Dodo™ bids falr to run into the holidays. It is a delightful production all through, Simms in the title role, Edith Mason as Piola, the rest of the cast, and the prettiest, tune- fulest, and best-dressed of choruses, are of its numerous attractions. g e “Lost in Siberfa” will be the melo- dramatic dish of the week, at the Cen- tral, of course. « e e Herrmann the Great has been cap- tured by the Orpheum this week. The popular magician makes this afternoon his S8an Francisco debut into vaudeville. Mary Shaw will continue “The Silent System.” @58 A Chinese magician, Ching Foo Lee, is the headliner at the Chutes Theater this week. * s . Fischer’s bill includes the Kins-Ners, the Kellys and eight other vaudeville leaders. the programmes are undetermined, but the Chopin E minor concerto has been mentioned as among the probabilities. Among the Paderewsk! compositions some of the following may be heard: “Minuetto,” opus 1; “Chant du Voy- ageur,” opus 3; variations and fugue on an original theme, opus 11; “Humor- esques a l'antique,” opus 14; “Legende,” nocturne, opus 16. For plano and or- chestra: Concerto, opus 17; Polish fan- tasy, opus 19. There will be two other concerts, to be given on Monday evening, Decem- ber 19, and Wednesday evening, De- cember 21. The pianist is due to arrive from Australia on the steamship Ventura to-morrow, and will begin his Ameri- can tour here. Kl s & The native American composer, through Mr. Arthur Farwell’s able and energetic effort, is just now attracting considerable local attention. Let me recommend an Interested glance In the direction of Will Marion Cook, re- sponsible for most of the music of the negro musical comedy “In Dahomey,” now playing at the Grand Opera-house. Will Marfon Cook is a Dvorak pupil and a native American of the colored variety. In “In Dahomey" he has given us, particularly in the prelude, music of a distinctly original flavor, vital in quality and by no means wholly of the ragtime brand. It has something of a primitive jungle thrill in it and sets admirably the savage scene it is writ- ten to. Noisy, a good deal of the later music is, trivial, stereotyped “coon™ stuff, but there is plenty to repay the attention of the serious student, and most of it will hold the careless ear. IR Lovers of chamber m something to delight in Quartet concerts. This afternoon’s has the lovely Schumann quartet (op. 41, No. 1), with the adorable adagio. Then for novelty there will be the Arensky plano quintet (op. 51), that will be given for the first time here. In this, as usual, the Koptas have the assist- ance of Mrs. Oscar Mansfeldt at the plano. Other numbers are the Lachner adagio, from op. 137, that is also new, and the Cherubini scherzo from the first quartet. o find always the Kopta - e Chopin, Paganini, Beethoven, Men- delssohn, Mozart by way of the banjo is the odd entertainment—alleged mu- sical—that Alfred A. Farland provides. His admirers, a huge concourse, claim that Mr. Farland’s kind of banjo play- ing Is really musical, and the tes mony at any rate is to extraordinary banjoism. Those curious can find out for themselves next Tuesday night Steinway Hall, when the banjoist will give a recital. He will be assisted by Alice Keller-Fox, another devotee of the instrument, and who also sings. o+ -+ | PoRTRAIT BUsT I i3z Lrrzasetw Fee V. floorrLeD By Miss Wivrrreo Sraretee