SHAKESPEARE AMONG THE LATINS

Cromwell Argus, Volume L, Issue 2646, 27 October 1919, Page 6

SHAKESPEARE AMONG THE LATINS

If S!iakes|ie.»re is abandoned by our superwise managers there is t.o reason why an eager public should submit to the eclipse of our greatest classic. The ‘Midsummer Night's Dream' was recently performed for the first time by Italian school children in the anci'-jit theatre of Tuseulum in the hills above Frascati. The mention of the word is sufficient to call up in any schoolboy memories of Macaulay, and ho will be glad to lenru that the old theatre of i In* Republican age is stil fairly preserved, though decay has robbed it of its pristine form. “The cavea is practically intact,” says a correspondent of (lie London ‘Morning Post.' “some columns of the proscenium are still in situ, and the stage and orchestra arc well preserved.” The picture of (his Old World town invaded by the American R-d I,‘ross on their mission of education as well as relief surely stirs some pride in ns who May at home, and the tribute, be it noticed, is from ilie pen of a British writer. “On the one hand rise Monte Cavo, with the grey hill-town of Roeca di Papa, and other of the Alban hills. On the other hand the Campagmi rolls away, mile upon mile, to the walls of Romo, and lo Candida Sorarte, rising in violet mist from (he plain. On the horizon to the sottlh the distant Mediterranean glistens like a silver shield. Shaded hy century-old trees, this theatre of the Republican age has gradually sunken into a state of abandon and decay.

Rut aII has boon reduced, softened, beautified by the hand of Time. Tho walls and columns are covered with moss and lichen, wild (lowers and sweet, herbs invade the dors of seats from which eager audiences once listened to the plays of Plautus and Uerencc; and sheep now pasture, within the precinct of the adjoining forum. “The silence of (he ancient theatre was broken the other afternoon by the sweet notes of stringed instruments and by the sweeter voices of young hoys. To the melodious music of Mendelssohn divinities unknown to classical mythology passed across i lie grass-grown stage-—Obe.ron and Tit ania. Puck and TTermia, Bottom, Flute, Quince, and the ethers. It was, perhaps, the first time that the ‘Midsummer Night's Dream' lias been performed by Italian schoolboys. The translation was that of Diego Angcli. He lias succeeded in rendering the play literally, and at the same time has created a delightfully spontaneous piece of Italian verse. Indeed, those familiar with both languages might well have asked themselves the" other afternoon whether the Italian translation did not appeal as more euphonious (ban the English original. The fluid phrases of the ligua. dolco wore as honey in the mouths of those sweet-voiced boy comedians. “The Italian is a horn actor. Io those Latin people the gesture is as essential as the spoken word, and it makes for bodily grace. The natural dignity and spontaneity of these youthful nriors could not have been equalled 'by schoolboys of Northern race and tradition. "No English lad could have interpreted Bottom as that youth has done, remarked an old Cambridge don. And the audience, spellbound by the intensely dramatic and essentially feminine rendering of the part of Titania, must have felt poignantly tho truth of Sir "Walter Raleighs observation : AVhcn the boy-players disappeared from the stage of England. British drama received a blow from which it has never recovered.’ The classic note of the performance was readied when, to the stirring burs of the f«unilinr Wedding March. Theseus and Hippolila, followed hy a long retinue of white-robed Athenians, were seen wending their way through the ilex grove to the grass-grown stage, there to witness • the tedious brief scene of Pyramus and his love Thisbc.' For a few hours the neglected theatre seemed to have reawakened to its ancient life and purpose, and to hold once again within its shattered walls the palpitating life of its legitimate descendants, garbed in the togas which only those of Latin blood can don with grace.” The players were not sons of Latium, we arc told. “They wore refugee boys from Venice and Friuli, who, since the disaster of Caporol to, have been housed in an improvised college outside Frascati by the Commission of the American Red Cross to Italy," and . ~ “The English comedy was recited by them lo celebrate their departure for their homes in the liberated territory. The music was performed by volunteers from the Augustes orchestra of Rome. “This college is a typical example of the "Teat work carried on in Italy during the fast years of the war by (lie American Red Cross. Within a few weeks from the day the appeal was made the American Rod Cross had remodelled and equipped a vast building, and had in active operation a college for a hundred refugee boys gathered from schools and colleges in (lie invaded territorv. Dormitories, classrooms, a chapel, baths and showers, a playing field where fool ball, baseball, bowls. and other games not familiar to i.he Italian schoolboy were taught, were installed within a month's lime. Nuns from a bombed convent in Padua were placed in charge of the kitchen and linen room, masters who had fled from the invaded territory were found to carry on the school, and the expense and administration were undertaken by (ho American Red Cross. Throughout, the length and breadth of Italy colleges, day schools, soup kitchens, sewing rooms, canteens, soldiers' inns, day nurseries, and other institutions to give, relief or employment to refugees and” soldiers’ families wore instituted by the American Red Cross. 'I he work has borne great fruit, Cor it has strengthened for ever the. tics of friendship and mutual understanding between the people of Ihe Latin land and those of Ihe young republic. .1 1 was a useful and practical form ol propaganda, the traces of which will not perish, ‘*