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oypnuis auu t? jjmnojurtee it • .AN ACTRESS’ POWERS .DESCRIBED.AScjile r*jcl»ic Inrtuenc«£[Xbat Hasn't Been jln»Iywd“A Strance Chapter.Clara Morris, who has been playing here for a week, is the most extraordinary phenomenon of oar day. She defies all;pro-., cedents, violates all rules* .overturns _ all. criticism. People still flock, to,see her and. pack the theatre ’to suffocation,, butlX-defjr any one of them to tell-•why.. In,fact,, nobody has yet told 113 why Clam Morris •wields a certain tmcajmy fascination. Sbo Is not good looking. She is. not • strong. She is not -artistic^ She is not heroic or tragic or versatile. Sho 'is gaunt and almost ghastly. Her voice is weak. Her- face is drawn with; the lines of pain. Her action is slow and; constricted and stealthy.Bat in spite of all this she is the one actress on oat boards today who wields the strange, mysterious, magnetic influence that bolds an assemblage in a spell and from which no ono can escape. It's a subtle psychic influence that hasn’t been analyzed,X rim not help thinking that it is the same morbid feeling that makes women crowd round a coffin and peer into the white mystery of that frozen rilenoc.Clara Morns plays her best in a sort of trance. Sbo goes oat of herself into the character. She is possessed for the time being, and then she reminds yon of those clairvoyant sybils who. with distraught nir, do lbs bidding of some trobealthly power beyond themselves. To those who know her her life is as great a mystery as her art. She has been an invalid for years. She lives on air. Nobody ever saw her eat a hearty meal The late Dr. Board, who gave his life to the study of morbid phenomena, once told me that sho was the roost magnificent example be had «Ter seen of tbs superiority of invalidism to artAnd 1 think she opens for cs a ■strange •chapter in the study of acting womankind. 1 have setsnenrmgbol the*© strong© creature; not lt» know that some of them can -do with thrir hysteria what intriligpoce can never do with its hilt;rioni«m. And 2 sbonla like to ask some psycbo3ogi*t if it may not bo possible after all that tbs mimetic power is only n form of hysteria.Clara J3 orris is one of thosertnaage human cryptograms that nobody can read, and if the woxld only tell her •experience in a ra*mml of candor, wc should get ai book to which the JdrangeJdmarvtdsef jtracnc© wonH look like tfctaoB.—5ym Crinkle in y-tr* York World _TSrikted the Colwoet*# Taaltj,catont tio: ret Vai boi agtYosto.by,cai. .1 ' eke•Vy.lusi^Baaretril-nixnsa?rTerev€paipetnutTbtbc1in ! xptYo-waof;Yoasi*FT5Tfrj«CJ*riJK*in:to;coltataic*■51Anmm*bcbirtiffm*cc«cmSr
Newspaper Details
Davenport Gazette
Davenport, Iowa, US
Sun, Apr 11, 1886
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Caroline A.
NA, 01 Dec 2024
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