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our emotions and feelings. The student reading him, loves and admires for very different reasons from the causes which draw from pit to dome of a theatre the loud collision of applauding gloves." He is the "world's "—not the student's "world."

Shakespeare was played here this winter for two weeks and in a dime theatre. Shakespeare for a dime!!! He packed the house, and a big house at that. Why? Do something, say something, write something, act something that will touch the hearts of men, that will touch the feelings of men, and men will listen and read to have their hearts touched, to have their feelings touched. I mean something more than the ordinary use of the word "feelings" implies.

You cannot separate in the representative mental operation cognition from emotion. The best of the actor's art is founded on this. He who writes a play must realize this. He must give the actor his opportunity. Feeling implies action, passion is seldom quiescent. It moves and stirs. He must write an acting play. Is not this the secret of the success of Richelieu? One must know to delineate and one must have known to appreciate, to feel the delineation. The grief of a father over a child's death is maudlin to one who never had a child and doesn't want any. Author and actor must know, to draw; the audience must have known, to appreciate. There are some feelings common to all men-low and high.

The same piece of acting may be applauded by the galleries and the dress circle. The educated and the uneducated, the refined and the coarse, the lady and her maid, the gentleman and his valet, may all be affected from entirely different causes. What seems to one selfsacrificing devotion, to the other is courtesy and gallantry. In the " Two Orphans" Pierre during a snow-storm takes off his coat and covers Louise. I have never yet seen the play but this was applauded; first in the galleries, then by the dress circle. An analysis of the cause may find that both are affected from entirely different sentiments, though the "emotional" feeling of the one is the basis of the "intellectual" feeling of the other.

Let me explain. The courtesies of life are nothing but small generosities. Politeness is unselfishness in small things. An uneducated man of the lower class is generous where the educated man of the higher class is polite. One is moved by natural feelings; one does a thing purely because it is kindness or generosity, the other because he has been taught to be polite. The gallery applauded Pierre because they saw in his conduct nobleness, unselfishness, generosity. The dress circle applauded because they saw evidence of refine

ment, of "natural politeness." One sees nobleness towards suffering weakness. The other the common courtesy of good society in a man who knew nothing of that society.

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Let me exemplify again. I saw McCullough once in "Othello" read the lines, "Michael Cassio, never more be officer of mine," (I quote from memory) in a way that I never heard it read before, though I have often seen him play the part; in a way he never read it again, though I saw him in the part again. He made the point" by throwing a tear in his voice. The idea conveyed by his reading was, hurt feelings, injured kindness, a noble smypathy, and discipline. There was the audience after his reading" still as night or summer s noontide air "the actor's head bowed-he lifted it -raised his hand, let it fall, and walked off the stage. Then came rounds of applause such as I never heard before. Galleries and dress circle vied in making noise, with feet, hands and mouth.

The employé in the gallery and the employer in the circle had seen and felt the love, and yet the justice, of the master. A gentleman next to me muttered a curse because he could not withhold his tears. The hearts of these men had been touched. "Shakespeare beats them all," remarked a man who candidly confessed he had never read the play.

I have gone far enough (maybe too far) to come to my idea.

It is useless to cry out against the English melodrama. The importation will continue until such time as we grow something to take its place. The idea that men attend theatre for rest from business cares is untenable. The nction that a man sings or plays joyous music when he is sad or downhearted is a common notion which no man has ever seen exemplified.

Men want amusement. The bent of human nature, the delight of it, is to have its sympathies excited. You may argue that it is ridiculous to go and see a play which makes you cry, and therefore makes you suffer. Does the actor suffer when he mimics suffering, beyond that nervous exhaustion which follows the coercion by the will of the nerves, to go through the same movements which he knows they go through when actually suffering? Is it not sympathy in the audience which makes them shed tears when he does? Are there not certain pleasurable emotions gotten from this exercise of the feelings? I take it that that play succeeds best which gives the greatest field for the exercise of human likes and dislikes, human sympathy, the active exercise of human feeling.

If I see a play in which the hero is an officer of the army, by "cognition" in my experience

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SCENE FROM "RUDDYGORE.'

ACT II.-THE PROCESSION OF ANCESTORS.

I expect him to act the part of a brave man when required. My idea of an officer in the army is based on what I have read, heard or understood of them. I judge them by their occupations. I expect them to live and do up to the type I have in my mind's eye. The author may vary his particular characteristics as he pleases, but only to that extent which preserves the main characteristics of the type. Under a given state of circumstances I expect this man to fight, not argue; to strike, not discuss; to be self-reliant, not dependent. If a play does not touch the chord of my sympathies and make him fight, so that he receives my approbation, I am disappointed. I expected something. I didn't get it, and my feelings have not been made to spring responsive to my desires, and to me the play is a failure. Some one said that Shakespeare's characters are types of men, not individual characters, and to this mainly is due his success. To me it appears that in drawing his characters he made them do just what the audience expects them to do. There's a controlling passion, and they do not depart from the line of conduct the ordinary run of men expect. Mandesley, in his "Pathology of the Mind," says that Hamlet was a homicidal and suicidal maniac. Mandesley could only have said this in seeing that Hamlet's conduct was in accord with that mental condition. The difference between the galleries and the dress circle is a difference of education, not a difference of feeling.

No emotion is absolutely free from cognition. Herbert Spencer said. "In our ordinary experiences the impossibility of dissociating the psychical states, classed as intellectual, from those seemingly most unlike psychical states, classed as emotional, may be discerned." He illustrates: "Take the state of mind produced by seeing a beautiful statue. Primarily, this is a co-ordination of the visual impressions which the statue gives, resulting in a consciousness of what they mean; and this we call a purely intellectual act. But usually this act cannot be performed without some pleasurable feeling of the emotional order."

Now I take it that the pretty statue would be enjoyed by the high art student and by the uneducated, and that the enjoyment would only be different in the wider field of pleasurable emotions excited in the student, not in the intensity of the feeling. To the student, his past experiences in observation and in reading, the statue presents the handiwork of a man of talent, of perseverance, and of all the virtues which gave the power to hew from out the formless marble that which lacks but life to make it human. To the non-student it is beautiful as a representation of an ideal—it is beautiful in itself-and the limits of his educa

tion limit the scope but not the power of his pleasurable emotions.

To one there is only the sense of the beautiful, to the other there is that sense and many others with it.

I take it the analogy can be applied to plays. One man enjoys the emotions called into existence pure and simple. He hates the villain, loves the heroine, and admires the hero. Another does this and more. His educa'ed mind sees in the play the skill of dramatic composition as well as feels its influence on him. He appreciates the ideas and their robing in words as well as the sentiments they express. One hates the villain without admiring the skill of the hand which drew the character and put it in the situation which brought its traits prominently forward. The skill of dramatic authorship is the skill which so does its work as to please these two classes. They constitute the theatre-goer, and they constitute that element which makes or unmakes the success of a play. And this skill rests in what? In nothing less than making or giving the opportunity of the actor to do.

"Enter Smith drunk" are the three words enabling an actor to put that work in the scene which, depending on the character and the play, may be used to excite to laughter, to hate, or to pity.

Salvini, it is said, won much applause on one, or may be more, occasions by a shrug of his shoulders.

It would astound a theatre-goer if he would stop his ears and watch and note how much he is affected by a good actor's pantomime as compared to the words of a play.

Analyze and find the secret of success of nine-tenths of the plays at which the critics hurl their diatribes, and over the success of which the lovers of true art sing their jeremiades. It will be found they are acting, not reading, plays. I do not wish to be understood as saying that a play cannot be both, z. e., Shakespeare. The successful play has in it situations which appeal to the emotions and touch the feelings. The dramatic construction is such as gives the proper force, by juxtaposition, to the various feelings played on.

What is, as a rule, the secret of success of the actors who have plays written to suit them, if not that the play is so written and constructed as to give the best opportunity to the actor to display his ability in moving the audience in the direction he wishes or can? They please and make money. No matter how faulty the play may be from every other stand-point, it has the one virtue of giving the opportunity to the actor of excellent representation, and thereby putting into activity certain feelings of the audience. The question is to so write a thing

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that a good actor will so act it that certain feelings will be portrayed to that excellence of realism that the audience will be carried away." The very phrase " carried away" indicates the idea. Some one has said, whenever we have a drama-reading public we will have good plays. This is true, but it takes a man with a powerful imagination to read a play and appreciate it. When you have a public which can read a play and can appreciate it. then you will have a public which will demand and be served accordingly.

I could say much more. I could go on writing, but more anon.

Raphael Benoni.

THE WEEK.

ISS COGHLAN has concluded her engagement at the Union Square Theatre, and has been seen in several important characters which have dis

played her charms and her versatility in a very agreeable way. She is a buxom and healthy Pauline, a shapely Rosalind, and a delightful Peg Woffington. She should, however, make more of a study of the lastnamed character. She

is oftentimes careless in the extreme, and this has appeared more marked since there have been two Pegs in the field. Mr. Mansfield now brings forward at this theatre Mr. Gunter's particularly successful play of "Prince Karl." And it might be said in passing that this piece was written by Mr. Gunter, and not by Mr. Mansfield.

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AT the Standard Theatre that exceedingly comical gentleman, Sol Smith Russell, has been very entertaining in a strange but amusing conglomeration called "Pa." Mr.

Russell is a very clever and talented man, who does not seem to find a piece exactly suited to his capabilities.

ON its initial performance at Wallack's early in the season, THE THEATRE reviewed Mr. Beckett's play of "Jack" at some length, and believed that it not only afforded Mr. Eben Plympton a splendid opportunity, but that it was an attractive piece. Mr. Barton Key brought it out here again last Monday night, at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, with a very good company, notably composed of Georgeana Drew (Mrs. Maurice Barrymore), Virginia Buchanan, Josie Hall, Charles Kent, Myron Calice and John Ince. Mr. Plympton of course sustains the part of Jack. As described at the time, the play is supposed to illustrate the difference between an honest, simple "Bohemian" life and high life among the aristocrats. But if Mrs. Beckett (she claims full authorship) imagines for an instant that she has drawn a truthful picture, she is sadly mistaken. It is false from beginning to end. And it is of

that insidious kind which creates harmful impression. It will lead the shoddy and the parvenu to believe that the "best set" is made up principally of a lot of vulgar fools. It does a very good thing for Bohemia, but there are plenty of rascals who pose in that guise also. If Mrs. Beckett intended only to show the ex!perience of a noble-minded young artist with a certain worthless family with money, that would be all right, but there seems to be a general explosion against "society," in which Bohemia" parades itself saint-like. Still for all of this Mr. Plympton has found an excellent vehicle for his remarkably good acting.

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AS WILL be seen by the announcements in the advertising columns of THE THEATRE, the week has seen but few changes. Wallack's, Casino, Daly's, the Star, Harrigan's, the Bijou and the Lyceum, still go their way rejoicing. The first performance of "Ruddygore" at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, is set down for this week.

Fileur.

THE author of the story entitled "The Lady from Maine," in the February number of the Atlantic Monthly, is Miss Florence Shafter, a daughter of J. M. C. M. Shafter, a well-known lawyer of San Francisco. She is only eighteen years of age, and has spent nearly all her life on a large dairy ranch of her father's in Marion County, never having been outside of the State.

SONG AND DANCE SOUBRETTES.

I.

LOTTA, Maggie Mitchell and Minnie Palmer, the oldest and best-known song and dance sou brettes on our stage, are all three petite in figure, graceful and sprightly in movement, and keep their youthful appearance so well that they seem to be getting younger every year. I expect any morning, looking over the newspapers, to find their names among the Births!

Strawberry-blonde Lotta, a New York girl, followed her father to California as early as 1854 and joined a variety troupe She romped and skipped and pranced and picked the banjo and danced the breakdown in so lively and fascinating a manner that she soon make herself a name. John Brougham first brought her out here. He used to call her a "dramatic cocktail," and he wasn t far wrong. Her quips and cranks and smiles and antics in Little Nell" and Firefly,' Topsy" and Musette," Bob" and "Tip,' Nitouche"

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and "Little Detective" have endeared her to all who love bustle, dash and hoydenish enthusiasm. The number of transformations in character and costume which Lotta effects of an evening is often equal to the number of diamonds she possesses, and they, as you know, are numerous and costly. She is a conscientious worker, regular and methodical, takes a nap every afternoon, and, after the night performance, indulges not in lobster and champagne but in crackers and milk. Lotta, as an artist, has not the intelligence of Déjazet, that queen of all soubrettes; has not the demure suggestiveness of Judic. Her interpretation of the serious side of her rôles is weak. She might say to her audience what Nell Gwynne once said to hers:

"I know you in your hearts,

Hate serious plays-as I hate serious parts." Lotta is the incarnation of drollery, of mischief, of broad farce, and, as such, is the most popular, as she is the richest, of soubrettes.

name.

II.

MAGGIE MITCHELL, unlike Lotta, is a married woman, and, like Lotta, has a horribly prosaic Lotta's name is Crabtree. Maggie's name is Paddock. Song and dance soubrettes, like other actresses, cannot be too careful in the choice of their parents, their husbands and their names. Maggie Mitchell made her great hit with "Fanchon the Cricket," about 1861, and has been chirping, frolicking and amassing ducats ever since. She has a fine villa at Long Branch and an uptown house near Fifth Avenue. If you saw this little pale-faced body in one of these houses, surrounded by her two children and the friends whom her hos pitality summons, you could hardly devine that it was she who looked out at you with her gray eyes in "Lorle" and "Pearl of Savoy," in "Mignon and "Maggie the Midget." A severe student of her parts, an intelligent and active disciplinarian of her troupe, Maggie Mitchell leaves me cold. There isn't the witchery of Théo, the genuine fun

of Schrott about her. And yet, wherever she goes to play,

"The full benches to late comers doom

No room for standing, miscalled standing room.”

III.

MINNIE PALMER, the third of the old time songand-dance soubrettes, though generally supposed to be the wife of John A. Rogers, is My Sweetheart," yours, and almost everybody s She has been before the public a long while. Glaring advertisements of her charms and talents greeted you on bill-boards and saloon lithographs over ten years ago. Successful in America, she crossed the pond and made the conquest of the crutch-andtoothpick brigade in England. So Minnie may justly sing with Camargo in the operette: 'Everywhere they pet me and applaud,

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DARK-EYED, dark-haired Annie Pixley cares nothing about these squabbles between Miss Palmer and Miss Crabtree. She pursues the even tenor of her starry way in "M'liss," and reproduces, with picturesque effect, the cheery, breezy frankness the animal spirits, the whole heartedness of that frontier girl. There is none of the artificiality of a heroine of Cooper about her. She is the very being that Bret Harte imagined. Annie Pixley, who, by the way, comes from Brooklyn, and signs on hotel registers as Mrs. Robert Fulford, has sung in concerts, choirs and operettes; but song and-dance business is her forte In the "Deacon's Daughter," her latest, she is doing well. Who will not echo the sentiment of that friend of hers who recently wrote in her album? "With banjo and clog, with jigs and with songs, Continue to charm admiring throngs."

V.

OUR soubrettes are too apt, by repetition during years and years, to wear their rôles as threadbare as a lazzaroni's velvet coat. They seem to be as unwilling to give the public a change on earth as John Calvin was unwilling to give the actor a place in heaven. Hell is neither deep nor hot enough," said he, "for players; and the man who will enter a play-house will be burnt in fires everlasting I am afraid that even so innocent looking a girl as Agnes Folsom would not have escaped the crusty theologian's anathema Calvin would never have forgiven her successful operette work in the Hub, after coming from her native town of Bath, in Maine. He would never have pardoned her for the enticing manner she played Nanon

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