Faksimile

Text

Der
ruene Kakadu
9. 3 eene e
box 15/3
floating draperies and flower garlands,
and staged with real waterfalls and sun¬
Vlit forests, and it treats of illicit love
among other hectie matters.“ Hannele,
on the other hand, is sorrow reduced to
vits simplest terms, love at its purest,
life in its simplest aspect. In the na¬
ture of things this exquisite creation
could hardly be expected to have a pop¬
#nlar success in a communitr which goes
tothe play to forget its woes and wor¬
ries, and wants either to be thrilled or
made laugh.
The earlier scenes of the play are har¬
rowing enough to make one long for res¬
pite in the way of excislon, but they
were presented with pitiless realism lam#
night. The dying child who has tried to
escape from the blows of her drunken
stepfather and the horrors of cold and
hunger by throwing herself into a pond
is brought into the village almshouse and
nursed by a sister of charity. The rest
of the play is made of the dreams that
come to the gpor child in her delirium.
The visions and apparitions pre¬
scnted last night were perfectly imagined.
Angels appenred in cireles 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
pof atinted Easter card, such as Hannele
inight haye seen in a shop window. A
little aristocrat with Puvis de Cha¬
rannes piecture books and a Tissot Bible
might not have dreamed-of angels in Just
that way, hut Hannele undoubtedly
would have decked them withy all the
bright hues 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 scheolmaster
grieve at her death. Her crowning van¬
ity is to wear the erystal slippers thati
Gretchen and. Bette found too swall.
Her one poor triumph over the school
fellows who have called her Princess Rag¬
tag is to imagine them begging her pardon
and asking'her Vnotsto tell theidear Lord
sthat they made fun of her.“ Wien her
dead mother appears to her she asks#if
in heaven one mayrest when one is tired
land cat wlen one is hungry, and sheire¬“
joices ihen a fantastic tailor brings her
in wedding veil, and a. shining gown, so
thät she may not be forced to appear be¬
fore her Saviour in tatters!
Mrs. Fiske as the child Hannele
effaced herself almost completely. Han¬
nele was a mere hub around whichsthe
play revolved. Seen dimly through veils#
Jof ganze the'illusion of small and fragile
gouth was maintnined and her voice had
the pathetie trehle of.the frightened child.
Alice John’s warm wemauliness shone
through Si er Martha's part, and Höl¬
Ibreok B#un was impressive as the
Stranger.
Hannele“ was preceded by: The Green
Cockatoo.“a "gretesquerie' in one act
by Arthur Schnitzler. It is a play of the
French revolution and the action takes
place on the eve of the fall of the Bas¬
tille.
Grisettes, aristocrats, actors, citizens
consort in a cnbaret which gives the play!
its title. Oue of the actors kills an aris¬
tocrat who he discovers has been the
lover of ihe girl the actor has just mar¬
ried. As the crowd in the cabaret gath¬
ers around the body of the duke, the
citizens flock in from the streets, bring¬
ing the news of the fall) of the Bastille
and singing the Carmagnole. The en¬
semble work of the company in this
colorful little drama was excellent, and
the color and grouping of the crowds
was picturesque to a degree. Holbrook
Blinn, Edward Mackay, Henry Stephen¬
Ison, and Alice John did good Work.
J. M.