The San Francisco Dramatic Review (1908)

THE SAN FRANCISCO DR.AMATIC REVIEW January 17, 191^ Evolving a New Scenic Art In Shakespeare's day stage decor- ation was left to the imagination of the audience, fired by the verbal feli- city of the poet. A hint here and there uas sufficient. A hobby horse indicating a regiment of riders or a placard bearing the inscription "Pal- ace of the King" were the sole con- tributions of the scenic artist. Mod- ern audiences insist on productions on the most lavish scale. We ask that life be imitated and even sur- passed on the stage. We have evolved two new styles of scenic art. One, that of Reinhardt, avails itself of fantastic perspectives. It is char- acterized by what may be caled an elaborate simplicity. Reinhardt in- sinuates. He suggests. His appeal is based on the precise application of psychological formulae. He speaks to the mind. Belasco, on the other hand, speaks to the senses. He cre- ates atmosphere by an infinite at- tention to precious detail. He him- self describes his secret as the po- etic adaptation of nature. Ad- vanced scenic artists in Europe, such as Leon Bakst, attempt to combine both methods. Though, as Mr. Bel- a.sco remarks in a recent article, the canvas of the scenic artist is limited, it is no more so than the painter's canvas. Beyond the margin <ji a miniature the whole can be seen, if the miniature be faithful. It is easier, he goes on to say, to produce, an effect in a circus or on a huge stage; but even on a small scale the jiroducer may avail himself of the language of nature, of sun and star, of sky and sea,—light. His own light-effects, he insists, are not merely matters of mechanical inven- tion. "I have often sat in an orchestra seat at rehearsal and painted a moonlight scene from my recollec- tions of an actual one. I have di- rected the distribution of light and color on the canvas as a painter man- ipulates his colors, shading here, brightening there, till the effect was complete. It was all done at one sitting for the first time, but I could never repaint that picturq. Once I had worked out the lighting of a scene, sticking at it sometimes till I was almost blind, there are no changes afterward. Mechanism com- pletes it, but the inspiration of a few hours makes it." While Mr. Belasco always sum- mons the drama to his aid, the stagecraft genius of the New York Hippodrome, Arthur Voegtlin, re- ceives but slender assistance from the story told upon the gigantic stage where he evolves his miracles. The Shuberts announce that they spent no less than $200,000 upon America. The plot, as one critic re- marks, is so slight that one does not have to trouble to follow it, but can devote all the time to admiration of the wonderful scenic efifects. The production runs like clockwork. Scene succeeds scene with such rap- idity that one has no time to get tired of one before another takes its place. Another remarkable thing, as a writer points out, is the way changes of scene are made, one melt- ing into the other almost before the audience realizes that the first is over. From the standpoints of me- chanics and scenic beauty, he goes on to say, America has never been outdone: "The production this year, instead of taking the spectator all over the world, is devoted to this country, all the marvels of which are shown in miniature on the immense stage. Of course there is a story as an excuse for this journeying. An internation- al spy steals some fortification plans from an officer in the United States army and is chased by the officer all over the Ihiitcd States. That's all, but it is enough for an excuse. " The spectacle oi)ens with a pro- log, The Landing of Columlius, and then the scene changes to the Grand Central Station. All the scenes familiar to frequenters of this ter- minal are shown. Then comes the old farm. Here bucolic characters are mingled with real cows, pigs, horses and chickens. At the farm the chase begins and leads first to the levee at New Orleans, with an old-fashioned sidewheel steamer at the dock and the levee crowded with darkies and cotton bales, forming a setting for songs, dances and cake- walks. A scene on the East Side is fol- lowed by a brilliant pageant at Pan- ama. The scene next shifts to the National Yellowstone Park; then quickly to h'lorida. The thriller of the evening takes place in the ( irand Canyon of the Colorado. Here the great Hippodrome tank is open for the first time. In the distance is seen an automobile, with four occupants, slowly climl)ing the trail. It disap- pears behind a crag and then sud- denly shoots into sight at the toj) of a steep grade. The chauffeur seems to lose control of the machine and the automobile plunges into the tank, turning upside down and s])ill- ing out its passengers. No less elaborate and, ])erhaps, no less costly was the recent i)roduction of d'.Xnnuncio's La Pi.sanelle, sub- named The Perfumed Death, in Par- is. The color schemes of this exotic play were worked out by Leon Bakst and \\'sevvolode Meyerhold ol the Imperial Theatre of St. Peters- burg. Each scene presents a veri- table feast (if glowing colors so skil- fully blended that the extraordinary crudity of some greens and blues is unnoticed. Nothing is a])parent ex- cept a rich glow which is full of fas- cination. The color scheme of the last act is thus described : "A brocaded curtain of gleaming, mysterious blue is slowly drawn aside, the salon of a great queen is revealed. Through the open win- dows there are visions of flowers and foliage—dull purple, faint rose and green. The floor is covered with a rich carpet, which reveals tones of grays and faint greens ; tiie throne of the (|ueen is faintly purple, the cos- tumes of her attendants are white and orange and peach pink. In the background there is a mysterious glow of dull blue — the blue of a summer sky at twilight. "Into this glowing frame Ida Ru- binstein, La Pisanelle, bounds, with the sinuous movements of a great dancer. And Rubinstein is strange- ly attired — long Turkish trousers, richly embroidered in gold and com- posed of vermilion red satin; a tight tunic of parma violet stuff glittering with gold threads, and on entering a long court train of black velvet lined with white satin and weighed down with gold and silver embroi- deries. Just at the end she casts aside her train and she dances the dance of death, which d'Annunzio has called La Mort Parfumee. She is smothered in lilood-red roses by sla\es, who wear weird robes 01 clinging silks' in an extraordinary shade of Indian lake. A marvelous, unforgettable coup d'oeil! And one which is possessed of importance, for the color scheme of Leon Bakst will be the color scheme of all the world tomorrow. It is the beginning of a new era in the worlds of dress and of the theatre." The theme of d'Annunzio's play is the reai)pearance of Venus in her native island, Cyprus, in Christian times. 1 ler spirit passes over the island like the sirocco, and, as she appears now in one form and now in another, a beggar, a fleeting queen, a saint, a courtesan, she drives men mad. "In d".'\nnunzio's hands the sym- bol is (piite magical. To the chival- rous she is his chivalry; to the saint she is his sanctity; to the libertine she is his lust; to every man she is liimself. In herself she is nothing. La Pisanelle is that in nature which e\"okes; she is d'Annunzio's reading of the Eternal Feminine. The form into which he casts this idea is a legend. "In the tlnrteenth century in Cy- l)rus a king with a tender name falls lovesick, but of no woman. He languishes- with the love of love, a mood as charming and absurd as the hero—a wan Byzantine child, whim- l)ering, ecstatic, effeminate, in the throes of first manhood. Adolescence and its melancholy are strong upon him; he muses; he has a mind to marry povert_v, humility, beggary— so perversely does \^enus haunt him. Then she first takes form for him as a Greek slave whom the pirates sell in Famagusta, a slender mum- niy-like figure, whose divine indif- ference exalts and maddens the crowd, drives one man from his rea- son, pushes another to his death, stirs the stomach of the king's uncle, and touches the king to worship. He hides her in a convent and her jires- ence intoxicates the nuns. We .see tliem running giddily about the courtyard in the moonlight, shaking off their sandals, climbing to her window to spy out her devotions and confessing all their peccadilloes to the saint. Then with his courtesans the king's uncle sweeps upon her to carry her off and tlie women recog- nize in her La Pisanelle, a i)oor •scapetrrace of Pisa; but to avenge a sullied ideal the king kills his uncle." "In the midst of this the moon- light seems to turn her to stone and to spread out the struggles at her feet as her pedestal, and the dying recotrnize in her the statue of Ve- nus." In the last act, where the heroine, like the guests of Heliogabalus, is smothered under roses, d'Annuncio mitrht have enlisted the services of still another art which is slowly evolving—the art of perfume. If, in the last act of L'.\fricaine, when Selica is dying from the poisonous exhalation of a huge manchinell tree, the aroma of some heavy Oriental perfume could become perceptible in the audience, it would no doubt pro- duce a new agreeable sensation in harmonv with the action and setting of the play. "In a similar way, the beautiful n\ght scene in the Masters of Nur- emberg, when Ilans Sachs sings Wie hold duftet heut' der Flieder, might be greatly enhanced if suddenly the pt rfume of lilac could l>e wafted inl the audience. .And if in a play HI Madame Du Barrj^ at the momei when the unhai)py mistress of Loui XV., on the way to the guillotine meets the lover of her youth an( utters words to the effect that'ever thing miglit have been different she had kept her appointment on certain morning years ago to gathi violets in the woods with him,' sui denly the odor of violet, like a vagui reminiscence, became perceptible i the audience, it would undoubtedly"^^ produce to 4!ic fullest extent that' sensuous aw emtTtional thrill—"*" pleasing to the highest and loweslL,, intelligences alike—which we know « as an jcsthetic pleasure." H' Jacobs Still Presenting NewPio! Ideas in Phoenix il\ "That hustler, Lou Jacobs,'' writes af'^' showman traveling through .'\rizonaij+ "has caught on in .\rizona, and tlieyi^' refer to him here as a .scientific man-^" '" agcr, as his progressive methods haver" '; made quite a hit with the business! ' people. He has introduced a new con-#- " test in the Daily Gazette here which is'"^^^ causing wide-spread interest. "S'ou'' can see where he is going to get a lot^ of free material. He has over twent; manuscripts sent in already, somi go(jd and some indifferent, but all con taining an idea. Jacobs has also sue-' ceeded in obtaining something hen that I do not believe has ever been ac-! complished by a manager witii a sh(3W, in the history of the business. He h had him.self appointed the Dramatii Editor of the Gazette, and will ]niblisly a page pertaining to the professionU every Saturday night. As we get buir^"' one or two road attractions a monthj here and have but one vaudeville house playing three acts of BertL^j. Levey's and a few picture theatresjF > you can readily see that the only sub-ff^' ject matter of intere.'^t on the pager y'^ will be concerning the L. B. J. attrac-| tions and peo])le." Adele Ritchie in Contempt Nl-.VV YORK, Jan. 6.—.\ikk- Rit- chie was fined $215 for contcmjit ol court in the City Court today becaiist she failed to a])pear for examination in supplementary proceedings. Thc!^," judgment was obtained by Elizabet Davis Berry for rent of a farm neai (irecnwich. Conn., which Miss Ritchie refused to pay on the ground that thei^ farm wasn't wiiat it was rei)resentec r to be. The actress was fined tin! amount of the judgment against her but she has two months in which tc pay. Ednio |ner a b, 1 William T. Hawtrey, Englisli, Actor, Dead Frrt) i: C WASHINGTON, Jan. 7.—Willian T. Hawtrey, the English character ac tor. brother of Charles Hawtrey, th< comedian, died in a hospital here to day a few hours after he had collap.sec in a street car. Hawtrey was 57 year; old. I le has been .';ecn here in mam plays. Andrew Mack opens his specia starring season at the Alcazar Thea trc on Monday night. January loth. ii Tom AToore. supported /by the (fleyc Alcazar Players. IBr,-, 2r \ ? . "Mi Hi- lt V 1. A I