A PASSION PLAY AT PARIS.

Press, Volume XLVII, Issue 7518, 7 April 1890, Page 5

A PASSION PLAY AT PARIS.

APPEARANCE OF SARAH BERNHARDT. (.PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.! Received April 7th, 1,10 a.m. * Paris, April 5. Notwithstanding the great outcry raised at the proposal to engage Sarah Bernhardt to represent the Virgin Mary in a passion play in Paris she took the character, and a great sensation was caused throughout France. Writing on this subject a Home paper to hand by the last mail says :—' The religious world In Paris is scandalised at a proposal to bring out a Mystery or Passion Play in Holy Week at. the Porte Saint Martin, with Mdme. Sarah Bernhardt as the Virgin Mary. The censor has not yet given his veto or his consent, but is waiting to see how public opinion is affected. Mdme. Bernhardt, interviewed on tbe subject, .has expressed, her astonishment at the horror which good Catholics express at her probable appearance in a sacred character. What greater harm is there, she asks, in per-forming-a Passion Play in Paris than at Oberammergau? Out of respect for their art, the actors which, if leave is given, are to play with her will throw all the religious feeling they can into the performance. As to the objection, of the religious Press that Mdme. Bernhardt is a Jewess, she says that she has the honor of belonging to the same glorious race as the Virgin, Mary herself, and has besides been baptised, having taken the Communion and gone to school at a Roman Catholic Convent. If she acts the part of the Mater Dolorosa, she will not go to Munkacsy but to the Pre Raphaelites for Inspiration, and will fall back on her own youthful imaginings when she was a boarder at the Tersaillea Convent In which she entered the Roman Catholic Church. The Chat Noir led the way in reviving mysteries last Holy Week. It had the Crucifixion in "Chinese Shadows," with suitable music, into which a Stabat was brought. There was nothing irreverent In the performance itself, and the fashionable world, which is anything but sceptical in its professions, went for the nonce to that resort of Bohemian artists. What is mors, it professed itself edified. It has been suggested to the Archbishop of Paris thac his best way to kill the Porte Saint Martin enterprise would be to have the mysteries revived at Notre Dame, as they were performed there before the time of Francis L