FIVE FRENCH ACTRESSES IN LON-DON.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 61, 9 September 1905, Page 13

FIVE FRENCH ACTRESSES IN LONDON.

It was said some time ago that Sarah Bernhardt was about to leave the stage, fearing that her powers were waning. She need have no fear just yet. I have seen herein lier new play, "Adrienne Lecouvreur" (its first production on any stage), and am free to cpnfess that she has left me amazed that a woman of her age (she is sixty-one) should display such power, such: freshness, such ability tp disillusion. Time was when Sarah Bernhardt was laughed at as well as admired. But that time has passed. She "is looked upon now as nob only an actress of transcendent ability, but as a playwright, a manager, a woman of fine, keen, subtle intellect. She has shovm true dramatic instinct in the construction of "Adrienne Lecouvreur." She has made from this old theme a play that, while it has an anti-climax, contains situations so full of passion and fire that it arouses audiences to heaTty enthusiasm. "A temperament expressed in six spasms," one critio cleverly calls it. It is not a onepart play, either, for Bernhardt has made the secondary female role one that gives opportunity for distinction. The piece differs materially from the one written by Scribe and Legouve on the same theme In the Bernhardt version the first act takes place in Adrienne's dressingroom at the Theatre Francais. In the opening scene we learn that • Maurice de Saxe's mother is trying to break up his affair with Adrienne. The Duchesso do Bouillon appears here as a rival of Adrienne, and emphasises her rivalry in the second act, when she da? mauds of Adrienno (who is sitting to Abbe Bouret for her portrait) the whereabouts of Maurice. The other refuses to tell, and leaves the place in a passion. Tho duchesse discovers that Maurice is in the actress's house, and confronts him there, begging him to come back to her. He refuses, leaving the house. Then Adrienne comes in, and there is a- fine scene betwen the two women. From there the play goes on to tne duchesses plot to poison Adrienne, with the help of Abba Bouret, 'who, poor weakling, confesses his design, and is imprisoned. An attempt is made to have him. sign a paper saying that his poisoning story is false, but he refuses. Then tho duchesse tells Adrienne that she (Adrienne) has been poisoned, which so works upon her nervous temperament that death follows. Scribe and Legouvo had her die of poison, but Bernhardt has chosen to make the imagination of a highly sensitive woman accomplish the end that poison would have brought about. This gives a touch lof fantasy to the play that adds greatly to Bernhardt's opportunities. To see her cowering in the shadow of death when wo know that death should be far away from her, to see her shudder at the approach of the grim visitor, to hear her cry of mingled horror and joy as she falls dying in her lover's arms, is to witness ,a superbly dramatic scene. I have never seen Bernhardt do better work than during these moments when, tprtured by honror, fear, a dread of dissolution, she cowers, with chattering teeth, and waits for the last great blow to fall. And that cry of mingled joy and horror — maybe Duso could do it as well, but I have heard it from Bernhardt, and want no other of it. I started to tell of five French actresses in London, but my enthusiasm for Bernhardt has left me little space for the others. We Lave been seeing Rejane in "Mme. Sana Gone," and she has been something of a disappointment. She is more of tho buffoon than when we saw her last>~her art is to a certain extent spoiled by broadening the humour of fho piece. Rejane, of course, could not be a failure in this play, but the 'public is entitled to more of her art than she has been giving it. And Maeterlinck's wife — Mme. Georgette Leblanc-Mneterlinck — has been with us, giving us lectures on and recitations from her husband's works. She has charmed us all, and has imparted to her hearers the enthusiasm she feels for her husband's poetry. One can not sit under thb spell of her personality and listen to her beautiful voice without at the very least feeling cordial toward tho great symbolist. Wo do not need to understand him in order fervently to admire his wife. Yvette Gilbert, who used to appear in severely plain dress that emphasised her quant lines, is treating us now to costume songs, appearing both: in Pompadour dress and in crinoline. She is charming in either, but I think I prefer her in the lullkco^-skirts, and of all her

chansons I like best "Souvenirs de Susette," in which, impersonating a plump, elderly matron, she describes to her children a love affair of long ago with tho poet Beranger. Fine art is employed in this song, and its air of tender reminiscence is touching. "The Man of th© Moment," the English version of Capus and Arene's "Adversaire," has served to introduce to us Mme. Simone Le Bargy, who is appearing with George Alexander in the piece. She is dainty, sprightly, and her recentlygained knowledge of the. English language adds to her delightful piquancy. — Piccadilly, in the Argonaut.