Scan 23
Musical Courier 1896-12-23: Vol 33 Iss 877, 1896
91 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 24. See the scan on archive.org.
1and the walls of the buildings had been elastic, when he heard a file-like voice.
3"Say, Mister, how long air ye goin' to keep the perfession moonin' out in the cold? I want a box fer the Cherrys, and a good one, right away!"
5Recovering himself, Mr. Hirsh saw the sunburnt quartet from the West, and said in his blandest accents:
7"Certainly, ladies. I have only one box left. It is next to the Vanderbilt's, but you won't mind that, will you?"
9"Ain't ye got nuthin' downstairs?" said Cherry Ripe, suspiciously.
11"Nothing," replied Mr. Hirsh. The sisters consulted anxiously.
13"Say, young man, air the Vanderbilts in their box this eve?"
15"Certainly, they never leave it." Now Mr. Hirsh was becoming angry.
17"And have they all got their diamond crowns on?"
19The sisters eagerly crowded about the window.
21"Got their diamond crowns on? Why of course. They never take them off. And they wear ruby slippers and golden gowns. No lady is allowed in the boxes here unless she wears a diamond or pearl crown. It is a rule of the house."
23The Cherrys grew pale. They held another powwow, and then the eldest of the tree said in despondent tones:
25"Oh, we didn't know youse was so grand here. Up at Mr. Hammerstein's they threw silver at us, but if it takes diamonds to get into your place, why I reckon we'll push on. But we did want to see Calf kill the bull in the bull-fightin' opery." Then they filed sadly out and were blended in the nocturnal drama of Broadway, and Mr. Hirsh was caught just in time by sympathetic friends as he swooned.
27That was a very happy little speech made by the old Duc d'Aumale to Sarah Bernhardt after she asked him to be seated.
29"I am very old, it is true," he gallantly twittered, "but I can still remain standing in the face of genius."
31The duke must have flattered himself. He is said to have made the same remark to the famous actress Croizette, to which she neatly retorted:
33"Who could not, M. le Duc?"
35I congratulate Mr. Hoyt and Mr. McKee on their new star, and also suggest that they take out heavy life insurances before entering into the scheme. Mr. Mansfield is no chicken, and if Hoyt & McKee handle him successfully, why, then the millennium is at hand, or Richard is not himself!
37I do not see the necessity of Mr. Hoyt or Mr. Mansfield stating that high-class plays are to be produced. One of the best things Mr. Mansfield ever did is Prince Karl, something quite in the Hoytian vein. Why shouldn't Mr. Mansfield play in a Hoyt production? He has appeared in stuff that is a thousand miles artistically below Mr. Hoyt's clever and sometimes truthful pictures of American life. Compare Cast'e Sombras with a Texas Steer! You cannot, except to the detriment of the former. Compare The King of Peru with A Black Sheep! Which is the truer transcript of life?
39It is the fashion to criticise Mr. Hoyt as a maker of rude farce, but his vision is a keen one, and he has certainly given us some truthful types of American life.
41As for Mr. Mansfield, I wonder if we shall ever get anything really satisfactory from him. This sounds impertinently paradoxical, but I mean it in all sincerity. He is continually being called the leading actor of the American stage, and a rival of Tree and Willard.
43What has he done to justify this claim? I see nothing but a magnificent array of failures and a man who, with a goodly amount of the histrion's temperament, has gone wrong from the start. I admit that he has mimetic talent and temperament, although the latter in no large quantity; yet he has turned his face from nature most stubbornly and refused to play in any but morbidly artificial pieces, and in them has developed mannerisms that choke and almost completely obscure his native gifts.
45Versatility, forsooth! In what play has Mansfield disguised for a moment his objectionable elocution, his shambling gait and fantastic personality? He is most successful when a part fits his curious and almost inhuman individuality. I never saw an actor who was less versatile, by the grace of God, as the Germans say.
47His Chevrial is an old tottering paretic, a slobbering paralytic, who mouths and mumbles. Is this the character?
49Not quite. Mr. Stoddart refused to play the part, because it seemed too young for him, and not—as I have read—because he could make nothing of it. The baron was not a senile idiot, but a man who interested women. Is Mr. Mansfield's Chevrial interesting to women, except as a shuddersome, loathsome creature? He is not the man of the story, by any means.
51Of Jekyll and Hyde it is not necessary to say much. It is a bogeyman piece, to frighten children—a melodramatic, limelight piece—without a suggestion of the profound psychology of Stevenson! Dimmesdale, Napoleon, Nero, Don Juan, Brummel, Shylock, Rodion, Gloucester, Sir John Sombras, all shallow variations and without the shadow of versatility. Mr. Mansfield stalks through them all. Mr. Mansfield, mincing, elaborately finical, self-conscious, without a ray of humor, of kindliness, of human nature. one of two readings
52Of Jekyll and Hyde it is not necessary to say much. It is a bogie-man piece, to frighten children—a melodramatic, limelight piece—without a suggestion of the profound psychology of Stevenson! Dimmesdale, Napoleon, Nero, Don Juan, Brummel, Shylock, Rodion, Gloucester, Sir John Sombras, all shallow variations and without the shadow of versatility. Mr. Mansfield stalks through them all. Mr. Mansfield, mincing, elaborately finical, self-conscious, without a ray of humor, of kindliness, of human nature. one of two readings
54Surely here is no achievement—nothing that a character actor of fair abilities could not compass.
56Mr. Mansfield has imposed his foibles, his affectations, his stilted, narrow, hard, stippled art and his lofty mannerisms on us until by sheer dint of the man taking himself morbidly seriously the public has followed suit. The result has not been favorable for his development. He has stereotyped himself into an image of disdain. He is rigid, his enunciation resembles no spoken tongue, his gestures are wooden, his walk—heavens! what is the Mansfield walk?
58Originally modeled on the famous Irving limp, it has outdone a bad model in its irresolute, ungraceful gait. Mr. Mansfield's poses are so artificial, so lackadaisical of late that he now resembles Patience on a poor pay day. His voice, originally a fine, supple, vibrant organ, has become a thread, a whimper, a gurgle, a groan. It is overlaid with fashionable tints, and the other night I wondered what had become of the manly fellow, the promising young man of ten years ago, who charmed us, magnetized us.
60Dear Mr. Mansfield, I have never seen you in private life, but you must be human sometimes. Pray, before it is too late; pray, for the sake of a stage that can ill spare you—a stage that is being hunted down by the vaudevillistes—pray give over these supreme dandyisms of yours! Be as manly, as resolute as nature intended you; give up this lisping, dilettante style of delivery, and also stick to your last. You are not a great romantic actor, nor indeed a great actor at all; certainly not a great classic actor. Find your groove and spare your admirers the mortification of recording another Mansfield failure. You play Prince Karl, Beau Brummel and Bluntschli in Arms and the Man to perfection; why not follow in the channel for which nature intended you? Shakespearian scholars declare that your phrasing of the master's music is not phrasing at all, and the groundlings have long ago testified to their displeasure when you play Gloucester or Shylock.
62To hitch your wagon to a star is Emersonian, and would not do for you; but remember if you are a star—and you evidently take yourself as a serious one—that a star must sink himself in the part he plays. Banal all this, but sound truth nevertheless. It is a pity to waste good dramatic material, and Mr. Mansfield is wasting himself nightly. He has become a dilettante actor, and his end is easy to predict—that is, unless he changes his methods completely.
64I really believe, however, that Mr. Mansfield in private life is a much abused person. Once give a man a reputation for snobbery, and it is difficult for him to lose it. Yet the most singular stories have reached me—stories that suggest megalomania, nothing less. Can it be possible that the playing of eccentric roles makes a man so vain, capricious, haughty and fidgety as Mr. Mansfield is said to be behind the scenes?
66Have you noticed that he seldom, if ever, plays quite sane characters? Prince Karl is the best balanced of his roles. It seems a pity to see an actor of such potentialities making himself a bad copy of an eccentric original—Irving.
68Mr. Mansfield has excellent musical taste, and he is, naturally enough, fond of displaying his skill in public. In Castle Sombras, with its Mysteries of Udolpho flavor, he plays a few chords on a cabinet organ. The painted pipes give this organ the look of a stately church organ, but the player has to supply the wind with his feet.
70It occurred to me that more sequential and churchly harmonies might be played by Mr. Mansfield. Some of his chords were not of King Charles' time, but very modern in color.
72Do you know that I am really becoming superstitious when I see Mr. Lloyd Bryce in a theatre box! He was in a box at the Fifth Avenue the night that a certain play called Mrs. Dascot was produced.
74It was written by a gentleman who was once Mr. Smith. After the play his name was naught. Then I saw Mr. Bryce at The Seats of the Mighty. He sat in a box in the lower tier. The play went to smash, and Mr. Bryce's teeth gleamed with Rooseveltian distinctness, but he clapped his hands and said nothing.
76On Wednesday night my heart misgave me. There in a stage box sat Mr. Lloyd Bryce, and in his eyes, after the third act of Castle Sombras, I read Et Ego fui in Arkady. He saw another Smith disport himself as a dramatic author, and heard the crash of the falling dramatic edifice!
78Is Mr. Bryce a possessor of maleficent power? Can he, in the vernacular of the Rialto, "queer a play"?
80While I am obsessed by Mr. Mansfield's name, let me conclude by saying that Castle Sombras can be made a capital travesty with but little trouble. Just a shade more of exaggeration in the execution and you will have a lovely antidote to the Stanley Weymans, Anthony Hopes and all the bastard historical bric-a-brac plays of the sort. Why, dear Mr. Mansfield, do you not do this? You are a master of spiritual irony. Make us laugh and be merry. You owe it to us after witnessing patiently your unparalleled pantheon of sick brained, hysterical and weak-kneed characters!
82Mr. Augustin Daly arranged the benefit entertainment of the German Poliklinik, which was given at the Metropolitan Opera House last Thursday night. It was entirely successful, for the house was full and most interesting as to program. Mr. Daniel Frohman sent some of his Lyceum players, and the evening began with a performance of The Old Musician, adapted from the French by Felix Morris. Mr. Morris played the title role with sincerity and much art. Felix Morris, Edgar Norton, Alfred Fisher, David Elmer and Una Abell participated.
84Then the great Wagner conductor, Anton Seidl, with his orchestra, played the overture to Tannhäuser. Campanari, the best baritone in the land, sang Toni's prologue to Pagliacci, and sang it gloriously. His tones are like those of his own vibrant 'cello.
86Soldierly Xaver Scharwenka, a cavalier among pianists, gave us his B flat minor concerto for piano and orchestra, a work that, despite its rhapsodic vein and numerous discursive episodes, ranks with the best of modern piano concertos. It is brilliant, melodic, and the scherzo in G flat is fascinating in color, theme and rhythm. Scharwenka has one of the best first themes imaginable in his first allegro, but he lets it go for smaller subjects. The last allegro is bold, daring and not always coherent, but what a refreshing, strong composition it is as a whole! How racy of the piano idiom! The scoring is done by a man who has a keen sense of orchestral values, and the piano figuration is rich, sensuous, graceful and arabesque. Scharwenka played in his most finished fashion, and as it was the first time I ever heard him play on a fine instrument his touch sounded most clear and musical.
88Clementina De Vere-Sapio sang the bell song from Lakmé, and gave its bewildering staccati with purity and ease. With Signor Sapio at the piano she sang for recall a valse song which displayed her coloratura.
90The newcomer here was a Miss Leontine Gaertner, a violoncello virtuosa, who surprised us by her mastery of an instrument seldom handled by women. She has a finished technic, her tone is rich and ad-
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