AN IMPRESSIVE REPRODUCTION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 14, 17 January 1901, Page 2

AN IMPRESSIVE REPRODUCTION.

"Hedda Gabler," produced last evening- at the Opera Rouse by the Nance O'Xeil Company, may perhaps be described without exaggeration as the most extraordinary play ever put on colonial boards. It, is claimed for it thai it is the greatest play of the century. This is a matter of wide opinion, the disciples of Matterlink, "the I'.elgian Shakespeare," as _ his somewhat I'tiddy school of admirers love to call him, would probably award the palm (o a playwrig-ht of

Jess—shall we hjiv—unwholesome, or, at all events, a less exotic school. Lint ( on one point there is no room for diverg'euee of opinion. "Heddit Ciabler" is a work of genius. Only a genius could have ercjilvd so extraordinary, so inhuman, so morally hideous a creature of iiedda, without either making us laugh at its unreality, or driving' xik from the theatre in horror. Ibsen does neither; and the result is a play which ought to be unreal, which in anyone else's hands would have been unreal, grips us, and holds ns in a manner for which we can scarcely account to oiirselves. The story may be told in the turn of a hand. Hedda is a soulless, passionless, cold, vicious woman. As a child ivc know she was malignant and cruel. Cruel, malignant, pitiless, she emerges as a woman. For some unscrulalile reason she has married a ;'Professor of Sorts, one of those cuiasj ciliated beings usually described as •of the jrenus tame cut. She long's to •"mould" a man's character-, and her husband is of course so plastic as to he useless. Jle possesses no character to mould: has not, alter all, had power to drive her victim to suicide, and not from remorse.not from shame, but from pitre bore'douj of the practice of wickedness and mortification •.-••hoots himself. To say that the play is pleasant would, on the face of the. above, be absurd, but it is indubitably! !i>reai, with the greatness with which' j i lie Chinese or Japanese create some | horrible monster in ivory, wood or ! pottery. It is unwholesome and unI healthy to the last degree, but it is enthralling and interesting, and whether viewed as literature or drama it is a stupendous piece of work. As for the acting, it is, in tho opinion of the writer, incomparably the best tiling .Miss O'Xeil has done, though naturally not, the most attractive. She is indeed often repulsive; if she were not so she would not be the character; but as a piece of finished work the performance is one it would be hard to praise too highly. Mr. Plimmer, as Brack, was satisfactory. Oho can always rely on this capable and conscientious artist. If Mr. I'linuncr's conception of the part of the Professor is correct, it must be pronounced a masterpiece of character acting. As an emasculated tame cat, he was immense, but one saw little of any learning or professorship She discovers that a sometime school girl acquaintance, "whose hair she useil to threaten 1o \. .11," lias reclaimed another old friend of hers, Kilert Lovbery, converting- him from a dipsomanic and roue to v reputable member of society, who has just finished a. manuscript which must inevitably bring-him fame aftd honour, j'or pure wanton damnablenoss and in a spirit of insensate jenlosfi*K Hedda taunts the man again to drink and women. She undoes all her friend has dove, and having- burned the famous manuscript in oinler that the damnation of the poor soul may be beyond reclaim, gives him a pistol ami beseeches him to carry out his suicide "beautifully." Here, you perceive, we approach perilously near the ludicrous. The word '•beautifully"' is used again and again in urging" this suicide. Now, save in the hands of a master playwright and a really fine actress, such a situation would infallibly slide from the sublime to the ridiculous. It does not do it, and herein is genius. Author and actress are in perfect sympathy and a really impossible situation thrills one with an extraordinary sense of reality and horror. Again when in wild excitement Hedda. enquires where Lovberg" has shot himself and finds Ihe. wound was not in the head and not in thebrea-stwe areon perilous ground once more, "Where, then?" she queries of Brack. "In the bowels," is the response. On paper that sounds ludicrous enough. In the play so great is the art o| tho dramatist in the dialogue which precedes and follows that there is absolutely no tendency to smile. On the contrary, again one feels the growingl thrill of something1 more horrible to follow. Hedda finds that the Around has not been self inflicted, that she has had no power to drive her victim to suicide, that instead of shooting himself in Ihe "head he was slVot by a harlot in the abdomen, and bored with' wickedness and mortified in the vulgarity of its results shoots herself. Such a play is not pleasant, but it is quite extraordinarily impressive, and so far as Miss O'eNil is concerned it is Avell played. It is, in the writer's opinion, incomparably the be:3t story from a histriqnic point of view she has done. The part suits her and she shows moro depth and subtlety than in any previous character, • not even excepting Magda. Ibsen's play is then neither pleasant or wholesome, nor does it contain any moral lesson, but whether, we regard it as literatui'e 'or drama, students of tfce modern school of either cannot afford to pass it by. What good is served by creating such a monstrosity is hard to say, but there is incomparable art in its conception and in its carrying' out. Apart from Miss O'Neil the drama is not altogether suited to the company, but it is fairly well done. Mr> Till miner, as usual, being a tower of strength in the time of trouble. The phiy will be repeated to-night.