Liebelei
5. Senenennn
box 10/8
rentst. frnsk. Trt Hit
content to purchase love in the present at tho
price, if need be, of deprivation in the kuture,
No attempt is madle hr Herr Schnitzler to gloss the
banality of this storv. In the first act Christine and her
friend Mizzi Schlager--once a milliner, now a convert to
the doctrines of Theodor—come tosupper at Fritz’s rooms.
The hilarions festival is interrupted by a visitor. Fritz
sces him alone, and after some conversation, in tile course
Sof which thegentleman's wile is more than once men¬
tioned, Fritz states his intention of remaining at home the
next day until twelve o’clock in csse the gentleman should
care to send twoof his friendls to make arrangements for a
further interview, at which the subject may be treated
more at large. In the sccond act Fritz comes
for the first time to Christinc’s room in her
father'’s house. He has a presentiment be will be killed
Pand feels the need of her affection. Her room, with its
humbleness, its homeliness, its aloofness from the world,
charms him. He examines the pictures or the walls, the
#tew books on the shelves, the bust of Bectnoven over the
stove, the imitation flowers on the table, The girl, half
shamed, half Hattered, holds her breath as he goes from
object to object, and when his feelings find vent in some
trite words of approval she is speechless with delight,
while poor chicken-hearted Fritz, trembling already
for the miserable existence his folly has endangered,
is touched and softened, and a doubt suggests
itself that the happiness he sought with euch
frenzied desire among such different surroundings
was verhaps waiting for him here all the time, to be had
fortho deserving. Heparts from Christine with unscenstomell
tenderness, and the girl, convinced at last that his love is
sincere, awaits with trustful anziety his return from an
alleged journey to his home in the country. Then after
two days of silence she learns that Fritz is dend;
that ho has been killed in a duel; that he
fought for the sake of another woman; that he died with¬
out leaving a letter, a message, a word of ang kind for
Christine. She is told she cannot even see him agein.
He is already buried. She would even do well
not to go to his grave for a day er two lest
her prayers should disturb the pravers of bis re¬
*I am not going there to pray,?' she
lations.
cries, as she rushes from the room. Theodor and Mizzi
follow. Her old father is wiser." She will never come
back, he moans, as he falls on his knees and covers his face
with his hands.
The crudeness, the undramatie indefiniteness of the
play as a whole is almost atoned for by the excellenco of
#this concluding scene. Its distinctive merit, apart from
its conception, lies in its extraordinary simplicity, its
absence of all generalisation of grief. As blow
after blow falls on the unhappy girl the re¬
sponse comes in a cry of anguish as natural, as
entirely reflex as the vibration of a musical instrument.
There is no railing at the barrier of birth or riches, no rant¬
ing against the selfishness or heartlessness of the man who
has wrecked her life; no rhetoric of any kind. It is
throughout the plain passionate utterance of a human
being who suffers, like an unreasoning crcature, withont
questioning the justice or injustice, without secking to
analyse the causes of its suffering. When she realises she
was no more than her lover’s plaything, it is the thought;
that he could never have understood the love she bore him
thattortures her; when she is told she had noright to stand
with his relations beside his grave it is the recognition
for the first time of the gulf between them that causes her5
greatest anguish. As an expression of purely individualis¬
tic self-centred emotion the scene has perhaps no equal in
modern drama. This scene offers exceptional dilliculties
to the actress. It is long and in one key throughout. If
it were taken in a spirit of passive lamentation the result
would be deplorable. Fräulein Eliza Nilasson recognises
this clearly. She attacks it and carries it through to the
end with extraordinary vigour. She is throughout a
woman struggling with all her soul against the afflictions
that are heaped on her. She never once gives way to that
lachrymose self-pitring plaintiveness that so many
actresses — and for that matter actors too — in¬
dulge themselves in. Nor does she once strike
the modern note of strident hystericism which
fars our nerves without commanding our sympathies. At
che commencement of the scene, when she rends the fatal
news in Theodor’s face and completes the sentence he com¬
mences, the word “dead'’ comes from her lips, not with a
shrick, but with the strong cry of a soul battling with the
agony it suffers. The same tone rings in the last words
that Christine utters as she rushes from the scene, and we
feel that the woman has done something to redeem the
weakness and unworthiness she hasshown in her love bytheil
strength and nobility she displays in her sorrow. Fräulein.
Eliza Nilasson by her performance of this part proves that
she is not only an actress of emotional power, which is rare,
but an actress of intellect and imagination, which is rarer
still.
5. Senenennn
box 10/8
rentst. frnsk. Trt Hit
content to purchase love in the present at tho
price, if need be, of deprivation in the kuture,
No attempt is madle hr Herr Schnitzler to gloss the
banality of this storv. In the first act Christine and her
friend Mizzi Schlager--once a milliner, now a convert to
the doctrines of Theodor—come tosupper at Fritz’s rooms.
The hilarions festival is interrupted by a visitor. Fritz
sces him alone, and after some conversation, in tile course
Sof which thegentleman's wile is more than once men¬
tioned, Fritz states his intention of remaining at home the
next day until twelve o’clock in csse the gentleman should
care to send twoof his friendls to make arrangements for a
further interview, at which the subject may be treated
more at large. In the sccond act Fritz comes
for the first time to Christinc’s room in her
father'’s house. He has a presentiment be will be killed
Pand feels the need of her affection. Her room, with its
humbleness, its homeliness, its aloofness from the world,
charms him. He examines the pictures or the walls, the
#tew books on the shelves, the bust of Bectnoven over the
stove, the imitation flowers on the table, The girl, half
shamed, half Hattered, holds her breath as he goes from
object to object, and when his feelings find vent in some
trite words of approval she is speechless with delight,
while poor chicken-hearted Fritz, trembling already
for the miserable existence his folly has endangered,
is touched and softened, and a doubt suggests
itself that the happiness he sought with euch
frenzied desire among such different surroundings
was verhaps waiting for him here all the time, to be had
fortho deserving. Heparts from Christine with unscenstomell
tenderness, and the girl, convinced at last that his love is
sincere, awaits with trustful anziety his return from an
alleged journey to his home in the country. Then after
two days of silence she learns that Fritz is dend;
that ho has been killed in a duel; that he
fought for the sake of another woman; that he died with¬
out leaving a letter, a message, a word of ang kind for
Christine. She is told she cannot even see him agein.
He is already buried. She would even do well
not to go to his grave for a day er two lest
her prayers should disturb the pravers of bis re¬
*I am not going there to pray,?' she
lations.
cries, as she rushes from the room. Theodor and Mizzi
follow. Her old father is wiser." She will never come
back, he moans, as he falls on his knees and covers his face
with his hands.
The crudeness, the undramatie indefiniteness of the
play as a whole is almost atoned for by the excellenco of
#this concluding scene. Its distinctive merit, apart from
its conception, lies in its extraordinary simplicity, its
absence of all generalisation of grief. As blow
after blow falls on the unhappy girl the re¬
sponse comes in a cry of anguish as natural, as
entirely reflex as the vibration of a musical instrument.
There is no railing at the barrier of birth or riches, no rant¬
ing against the selfishness or heartlessness of the man who
has wrecked her life; no rhetoric of any kind. It is
throughout the plain passionate utterance of a human
being who suffers, like an unreasoning crcature, withont
questioning the justice or injustice, without secking to
analyse the causes of its suffering. When she realises she
was no more than her lover’s plaything, it is the thought;
that he could never have understood the love she bore him
thattortures her; when she is told she had noright to stand
with his relations beside his grave it is the recognition
for the first time of the gulf between them that causes her5
greatest anguish. As an expression of purely individualis¬
tic self-centred emotion the scene has perhaps no equal in
modern drama. This scene offers exceptional dilliculties
to the actress. It is long and in one key throughout. If
it were taken in a spirit of passive lamentation the result
would be deplorable. Fräulein Eliza Nilasson recognises
this clearly. She attacks it and carries it through to the
end with extraordinary vigour. She is throughout a
woman struggling with all her soul against the afflictions
that are heaped on her. She never once gives way to that
lachrymose self-pitring plaintiveness that so many
actresses — and for that matter actors too — in¬
dulge themselves in. Nor does she once strike
the modern note of strident hystericism which
fars our nerves without commanding our sympathies. At
che commencement of the scene, when she rends the fatal
news in Theodor’s face and completes the sentence he com¬
mences, the word “dead'’ comes from her lips, not with a
shrick, but with the strong cry of a soul battling with the
agony it suffers. The same tone rings in the last words
that Christine utters as she rushes from the scene, and we
feel that the woman has done something to redeem the
weakness and unworthiness she hasshown in her love bytheil
strength and nobility she displays in her sorrow. Fräulein.
Eliza Nilasson by her performance of this part proves that
she is not only an actress of emotional power, which is rare,
but an actress of intellect and imagination, which is rarer
still.