A FAMOUS ACTRESS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 247, 11 July 1908, Page 11

A FAMOUS ACTRESS.

The English lady correspondent of the "Australasian" gives a very, interesting sketch of iYtadarae Dupree, a French, actress, who has been acting for a short season at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London. This lady, of whom tho English general public had heard little, and I had heard nothing but her name, she writes, is a won-, derfully gifted actress in a style quite different from that of the ever-persistent Sarah Bernhardt, Rejane, or any of the other celebrities.. I imagined from the descriptions I havo heard and read that 'Madame Dupree possesses' extraordinary originality and the power of expression, without staginess, in a degree rarely equalled, and I now learn that she is the Mademoiselle Susanne Auclaire, who acted in the memorable performance of "Pelleas and Melisande" at the' Court Theatre ton years ago, an occasion which holds a high place in my crowded memory of dramatic "events." Since then she has done great things; acted with her husband in every European capital, at several Paris theatres, and at the Comedie Francais played "Phedre" with distinguished success —this is a test feat still, although I imagine few critical playgoers are now living to compare any performance of that part which Jules Janin told me, thon an expectant and juvenile . stranger in Paris, was "the almost impossible" while the memory of Hacliol should dwoll among Parisians. Apart from a brilliant' career at the Conservatoire, whore 'she secured the prize both for tragedy and comedy, most of her best work, as wo learn from' the dramitic critic of the "Daily Chronicle," has been done in connection with her husband's famous organisation, "Le Theatre do I'CEuvre." It was this splendidly successful institution that introduced Ibsen to tho French public. . Tho part of "Nora" in "Tho Doll's House" is one of the most famous performances given by her. Madame Dupree affords a striking cxamplo of tho thoroughness and seriousness with which tho drama as a fine art is regarded by French artists. She adopted tho pseudonym, under which I saw her for that once only, on her husband's advice, her wish being that she should not appear in her own namo until her art had matured. "Would that English actresses were as conscientious," writes one of her critics in recording this fact. lam led by a description of her quiet, serious, and wholly unaffected manner, her intense expression, and complete absence of self-con-sciousness, which has just reached me from an old and sure "hand" among the friends of my former play-going da"ys, that this bright particular star of the present would recall t,o mo the iucomparabla brief-lived Aimee Desclef.