then-hild, Hannele. bliss Maude Halk“
was the Deaconess and the Apparition of
Hannele’s Mother; Miss Alice Butler was
the Sister Martha and Mr. Charles Rich¬
man was Gottwold the Schoolmaster and
The Stranger whom Mayor Gilroy and
others persisted in calling Christ.
Mr. Gerhardt Hauptmann, who was in
New York at the time for the purpose 01
witnessing the first performance in
English of his play, thought it necessarz
to deny that The Stranger was intended as
a representation of Christ. The Mayor,
unable to prove that Mr. Hauptmann wat
in error, contented himself with obita dicta
on ’saerilege' and on an age not in sym¬
pathy with “miracle plays,“ but he did
not further interfere with the arrange¬
ments. Of course the theatre was crowded
from stage to stairways.
Those times of much ado are now re¬
called to mark the broader state of the
public, the official, and the semi-official
mind of 1910. Nobody dreamed of beseech¬
ing Mayor McClellan to preserve the city
krom sacrilege when Mr. Charles Rann
Kennedy’s play, The Servant in the
House,“ was produced by Mr. Henry
Miller. Nobody felt called upon to prevent
the appearance of Mr. Forbes-Robertson
in The Passing of the Third Floor Back,
Talthough his Stranger or Passerby is quite
asimplous' for three hours as Haupt¬
mann’s is for fifteen minutes. No society
has considered it necéssary to guard the
#morals“ of the juvenlle actor who played
that fond and skilful cracksman, Jimmy
Valentine, at Wallack's the other day; no
clty fathers, reverend fathers, officers or
citizens forbade Mr. Ben Greet to produce
Dr. Faustus“ at the Garden Theatre, al¬
though in that drama, as inHannele,
“sacred names are used with much fre¬
quency,“ and there are“visions“ which
even a Mayor might be “unable to dis¬
Ltingulsh from real occurrences“; and no
enemy of The New Theatre was conscious
of an inner call to suppressSister
Beatrice“ as a “blasphemous attempt to
represent sacred things and feelings on
the stage.“ It will be observed that there
Is some senslble movement in the world.
Hannele“ is written and acted in as
Treverent a spirit as Sister Beatrice.“ It
Is not throughout so beautiful a spectacie
as Maeterlinck’s play, because in the latier
the action never departs from the Convent
of Dur Lady at Louvain. There the spec¬
tator is always in the presence of the sister¬
hood and before the shrine. In“ Hannele“
the scene is a bare and rickety room in a
mountam almshouse, and the spectator 18
Introduced to a ragged, dirty lot of odious
pauperé, some of whom are thieves and
some worse than thieves.“ To this repul¬
sive refuge, on a winter night, Gottwold
the Schoolmaster brings Hannele Mattern,
a girl of fourteen, whom Seidel the Wood¬
cutter has saved from drowning. Over¬
weighted with misery, the child has souaht
relief in death. Her mother is dead. Her
reputed father is a sot, who beats the child
and sends her out to beg. Berger, a pom¬
pous and hypecritical magisträte, is really
the child’s father, and, of course, he is
bound to inveke the law against child
Isuleide and the drunkenness of such good
Pfor nothings as Mattern the Mason. Mat¬
Itern, by the way, married Hannele’s mother
after Berger’s desertion.
While the law and medicine, thermunic¬
lpality and the Church are debating over
the course to pursue with the unfortunate
schild, Hannele falls into an iliness, has dé¬
lirlous moments and sees visions. She
sees the Angel of Death; she sees her own
mother, who must have been, she is quite
sure, the sweetest and best of women. She
sees the rum soaked Mattern, who is always
beäting her. Besides the Angel of Dark¬
ness, she sees Angels of Light. The only
kindness she has ever known is the kind¬
ness of Gottwold the Schoolmaster, and she
thinks Gottwold must be like Christ. She
knows now, too, the kindness of Sister Mar¬
tha, the Deaconess. By and by the child
sees the Lord in her vision, and the Lord
resembles the good, kind Gottwold and
speaks like him. And the Angels of Light
sing to her of heaven. Death is beautiful,
and she wants to die. They bring her a
crystal coffin and a bridal gown, such a
gown as she would have worn had si#
married Gottwold. But now she is to be
the Bride of thé Lord. Her poor little brain
is tangled up with memories of earthly
wretchedness and heavenkz bliss, with
crude theology and the real dream world
of childhood. She sees herself dying, dead:
sees her funeral, hears people say that she##
1

Se u Helen ente re. r1e e. e
a ducal lover. And so he enacts a scene
of wild revenge, in which he kilis an
imaginary duke. Never has he acted with
such passion. And at its height a crowd
roars inté the cabaret, yelling: “The Bas¬
tile has fallen!“ And, behold, in comes
his grace the duke, upon whom Henri falls
murderousty. letting out bis life. There
arefall kinds of eriminals and scurvy
knaves, and noblemen and dusty revolu¬
tionarles, king’s men, and people's men.
nolsy patriots who are humbugs, and qulet
ones who may be anything you like—but
what do they in this galley? There are
demagogues and persons of fashion, there
Is Prospere, keen for revolution and pieces
of gold; there is a conwict-knave, there is
Henri, the mime, a nalve actor, and there
is the woman. And the woman kneels by
the murdered duke and moans: Never
was I worth so much as this!“
Schnitzler’s piece is ingenlous in both idea
and execution—a model curtain raiser. It
gives Mr. Blinn another impressive part
as the chief actor in the café and provides
a lively series of eramatic contrasts. Its
cast was:
Emlle, Duc de Cadignan..... Edward Mackay
Françols, Vicomte de Nogeant. Cyril Chadwick
Albln. Chevaller de la Tremouille. Gregory Kelly
Marquis de Lansac Fuller Mellish
Severine Merle Maddern
Rollin R. W. Tucker
Prospere Henry Stephenson
Heuri Holbrook Blinn
Quillaume R. Owen Meech
Scaevola Paul Scardon
Jules Harold Matthews
Michette Helena Van Brugh
Flipote Veda MeEvers
Loocadie Allee John
Grasset Sheldon Lewis
Lebret Robert Ower
Grain Wilfred Buckland
The Commissalre T. N. Heffron