Der
ruene Kakadu
9. 3 e enee e
box 15/3
pore
320
ADVERTISER. NEW YOR
4
T
GLTTG
Hannele.“
N artistic and beautiful version of
∆ Gerhart Hauptmann's“ Hannele“
was presented by Mrs. Fiske at
the Lyceum last evening before an audi¬
ence that seemed undecided whether to
laugh or cry. It was a large audience,
interested, well meaning, but puzzled.
Its furrowed brow and restless sighs
seemed to say: Now, Mme. X’ was
weepy, and The City’ was shuddersome,
but what does all this mean? And
perhaps these literal folk were within their
rights. Those who dissolve in tears over
M. Bissen’s court room scene, and writhe
in sympathy with Tully Marshall’s
"doped' nerves, could hardly be expected
to spend emotion over the imperish¬
able poem that Hauptmann has woven
from a child’s dream.
The Sunken Bell,“ misty, subtle, com¬
plex in its high flown symbolism, has
had a certain success here. But“The
Sunken Bell' is full of sprites and fairies
played by personable young women in
floating draperies and flower garlands,
and.staged with real waterfalls and sun¬
lit forests, and it treats of illicit love
Tamong other hectic matters. Hannele,
onithe other hand, is sorrow reduced to
its simplest terms, love at its purest,
life in its simplest aspect. In the na¬
Iture of things this exquisite creation
could hardly be expected to have a pop¬!
ular success in a community which goes
tothe play to forget its woes and wor¬
ries, and wants either to be#thrilled or
mäde laugl.
The earlier scenes of the play are har¬
rowing enough to make one long för res¬
pite in the way of excision, but they
were presented with pitiless realism lam
nicht. The dying child who hasstried'te.
escape fron# the blows of her drunken.
stepfather and the horrors of colds and
hunger by throwing herself into a pond
is brougbt into the village almshouse and
nursed 1## a sister of charity. Theurest
of the play is made of the dreams that
come tothe poor child in her delirium.
The visions and apparitions —press##
sented last night were perfectly imagined.
Angels appeared in circles of blue lights,
dazzling, primitive, almost crude, just the
way a village child might have imagined
them, from the naive pictures in her
Pheap prayer book. The glimpse of the
golden stairway with its serried ranks of
Tgolden-haired cherubs was like the heaven
of a tinted Easter card, such as Hannele
might haye seen in a shop window. A
little aristocrat with Puvis de Cha¬
rannes picture books and a Tissot F’ble
might not have dreumed of angels in st
that war, but Hannele undounteuiy
would have decked them with all thef
bright nues and stiff grandeur of the#
angels in the village church windows.
In pitiful fashion the child’s scant
knowledge of Joy is shown. The height
of bliss is to have her schoolmaster
grieve atcher death. Her crowning van¬
ity is to wear the crystal silppers that
Gretchen and Bette found too snall.
Her one poor triumph over the school
ellows who have called her Princess Rag¬
ruene Kakadu
9. 3 e enee e
box 15/3
pore
320
ADVERTISER. NEW YOR
4
T
GLTTG
Hannele.“
N artistic and beautiful version of
∆ Gerhart Hauptmann's“ Hannele“
was presented by Mrs. Fiske at
the Lyceum last evening before an audi¬
ence that seemed undecided whether to
laugh or cry. It was a large audience,
interested, well meaning, but puzzled.
Its furrowed brow and restless sighs
seemed to say: Now, Mme. X’ was
weepy, and The City’ was shuddersome,
but what does all this mean? And
perhaps these literal folk were within their
rights. Those who dissolve in tears over
M. Bissen’s court room scene, and writhe
in sympathy with Tully Marshall’s
"doped' nerves, could hardly be expected
to spend emotion over the imperish¬
able poem that Hauptmann has woven
from a child’s dream.
The Sunken Bell,“ misty, subtle, com¬
plex in its high flown symbolism, has
had a certain success here. But“The
Sunken Bell' is full of sprites and fairies
played by personable young women in
floating draperies and flower garlands,
and.staged with real waterfalls and sun¬
lit forests, and it treats of illicit love
Tamong other hectic matters. Hannele,
onithe other hand, is sorrow reduced to
its simplest terms, love at its purest,
life in its simplest aspect. In the na¬
Iture of things this exquisite creation
could hardly be expected to have a pop¬!
ular success in a community which goes
tothe play to forget its woes and wor¬
ries, and wants either to be#thrilled or
mäde laugl.
The earlier scenes of the play are har¬
rowing enough to make one long för res¬
pite in the way of excision, but they
were presented with pitiless realism lam
nicht. The dying child who hasstried'te.
escape fron# the blows of her drunken.
stepfather and the horrors of colds and
hunger by throwing herself into a pond
is brougbt into the village almshouse and
nursed 1## a sister of charity. Theurest
of the play is made of the dreams that
come tothe poor child in her delirium.
The visions and apparitions —press##
sented last night were perfectly imagined.
Angels appeared in circles of blue lights,
dazzling, primitive, almost crude, just the
way a village child might have imagined
them, from the naive pictures in her
Pheap prayer book. The glimpse of the
golden stairway with its serried ranks of
Tgolden-haired cherubs was like the heaven
of a tinted Easter card, such as Hannele
might haye seen in a shop window. A
little aristocrat with Puvis de Cha¬
rannes picture books and a Tissot F’ble
might not have dreumed of angels in st
that war, but Hannele undounteuiy
would have decked them with all thef
bright nues and stiff grandeur of the#
angels in the village church windows.
In pitiful fashion the child’s scant
knowledge of Joy is shown. The height
of bliss is to have her schoolmaster
grieve atcher death. Her crowning van¬
ity is to wear the crystal silppers that
Gretchen and Bette found too snall.
Her one poor triumph over the school
ellows who have called her Princess Rag¬