Life — March 5, 1891 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

RIES THE SNAKE DRAMA, M®*. SHAKESPEARE has no cause to turn over in his mausoleum be- cause of the affront put upon him by Mme. Bernhardt. In engaging Mr. Sardou towrite a “Cleopatra” for her, she im- plied that while Mr. Shakespeare might write a “Cleopatra” good enough for Mrs. Potter, Mrs. Langtry and Miss Davenport, he could not write one good enough for Mme. Bernhardt. The result, however, shows that Mr. Shakespeare could write “Cleopatras" that were yood enough for anybody, and that as a Cleopatra-writer Mr. Sardou is a long distance on the out- side so far as being in it is con- cerned. In fact, Mr. Sardou has given us an excellent opportunity to judge just how. far the work of the ~tas J most celebrated of modern dra- } Seb / matists fall below that of the great- < up est of all dramatists. ~t Mr. Sardou's friends claim, and A rightly, that his “Cleopatra” is not \\_ by any means up to his standard, but ‘Mr. Shakespeare's adherents are quite as sure that his Cleopatra” is a long ways from being one of his great plays. Even in this comparison of inferior work, the Gaul is so far from the Saxon, that at every performance Shake- speare is amply avenged for the apparent slight put upon his memory by the French actress. In action, in situations, in dialogue, the French version is distinctly inferior to our own. But if the play is worse its deficiencies are largely compensated for by the superi- ority of Mme. Bernhardt's Cléopdtre to the Cleopatras of her English-speaking rivals. In dreaminess and sensuousness, in the combined fire and seductiveness of her personality, she seems to embody all that we know of the real Cleopatra from history, and all that we picture her in our imaginations. The daughter of the South, swart and masterful, fiery of temper with the breath of the desert, imperious with the blood of the Pharaohs, impatient of fate itself, and with dif- ficulty brooking even the insuperable opposition of time and distance, she is yet childish and caressing, loving and yield- ing, as only a woman can be yielding when she loves. It is not strange that Bernhardt aspired to play C/eopfatra, for there is in her own identity much of Cleopatra as we have been wont to picture her. When an actress so completely satisfies the expectations as Bernhardt does in this part, it may be possible to pick flaws in her declamation or find fault with her taste, but criticism according to canon is out of the question. One might as well criticize the east wind for not blowing exactly from the east. Dramatically she is a law unto herself, and her Cléopdtre must be taken at full length, not dissected into square inches for microscopical examination. Neither her company nor the setting given the play are above the ordinary, and we come away thinking not of them, but that we have seen the greatest of stage Cleopatras. Metcalfe. UILL: How did you happen to leave ? 6) ScR : I wrote a scorching leader against women’s rights, not knowing that the heaviest stockholder of the paper was an old maid! Frugal Husband: 1 wisi 1 ab $50,000 4 YEAR. Unappreciative Wife: WHAT VOR? YOU DON'T SPEND A QUARTER OF YOUR PRESENT INCOME, F. H.: On, I KNow; BUT THEN T COULD ECONOMIZE ON A LARGER SCALE, comicbooks.com