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POPULAR ENTERTAINMENTS,Bfodjeika In H«r New Play at the ArchStreet Theatre,A crude and rather heavy melodrama 19 TheChouans, the new play added to the repertoryof Madame Modjeska and produced lost nightbefore a numerous audience. It Is a sketch ofthe seml-barbarous loyalty of the knights and peasants of Britanny at the time tnat Napoleon the First was playing at Republicanism in Paris In order to win power and become more tyrannical than the Kings before him. The original, by Balzac, was a picture of wild hu* manlty, of feudal fealty, of family pride that was intense and vivid, but, as recast by M, Pierre Berton, has probably lost much of itsIn the endeavor to shape the novel into a the French dramatist and Mr. Paul M.otter, the American adapter, have only sue* ceeded in giving us a weak melodrama, a little tedious at the outset, bettered onl^ sparingly as it proceeds and saved from disaster by careful acting and picturesque presentation. The story is an unpleasant one of a superb woman, who acts as a detective for Fouche, the French Minister of Police, to capture; the Chouans, a band of royalists, whose war and warning cry is the screech of tne owl, from which the play takes its name. In the execution of her miserable mission she is ruthlesk to all but the leader of the Chouan*, the “White Chief,” her lover, who she tries to save and In the end is foiled. The role of Marie de Vernueil was assumed t)$ Madame Modjeska, and it ill becomes her, for it was only in the last act. where she had tq depict her utter discomfiture, the crushing of her proud spirit, the failure of ml effort, the cruel breaking of her heart, that she showed I more than mere glints of her artistic excellence. Then, indeed, she was great, but only j for a little while.! The piece has several dramatic episodes which help to carry it along,, and if these had been properly strung together, with a more clearly defined plot, it would be possible to make it successful. Grand scenery, superb costumes and an excellent east of characters helped the drama. Mr Maurice Barrymore was an ideal Brittany chief, the “Marquis de Montauran,” and, except for occasional choppy enunciation and Anglican mannerism, did admirably. Good support to these leaders was given by Miss Grace Henderson, James R. Carhart, Mary ghaw, Albert Long, Clara Ellison, E. Hamilton Bell, Laura Johnson, Ion Robertson, Miss Siddonell, William Haworth, W. F. Owen and others. The Chouans tonight and to-morrow afternoon and evening.
Newspaper Details
Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
Fri, Feb 04, 1887
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
Library O.
DC, USA 12 Feb 2022
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