SOME STAGE FIGURES

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 107, 6 May 1916, Page 11

SOME STAGE FIGURES

RACHEL AND SARDOU,

The American ex-actress, Eleanor Calhoun, in the days before she became a princess (Princess Hrebelianovich) on the real stage of the Balkans, was very keen to follow Coquelin's advice and learn French to the limit of perfection necessary to take big parts on the stage of Rachel, Bernhardt, and Antoine. She went to live in Paris, and saw Rachel triumph on the stage; and next morning was amazed to find her dishevelled and distraught at home, rehearsing for all she was worth, to retrieve what she. regarded as a failure.

Rachel had a peculiarity (says a writer in T.P.'s Weekly) that I have, noticed in one lady well known to the London art world She disliked shaking hands, even with friends, owing to a feeling of weakness, of leakage of vitality, that always followed upon touching anyone. Rachel was an " Elektra," an untouched. The old poet Leconte de Liste recalled an occasion at table when Rachel had said half playfully to the person next her, " If I forbid you to lift your glass and drink from it, you will be unable to do so." Tho gentleman accepted the challenge, and clasped his fingers about his wine-glass; but in obedience to a gesture from her long, taper finger, and her spoken " I forbid you," he was totally unable to budge it from its place, much to his embarrassment.

Personal magnetism has much to do with the actor's art, and also with that of the still-life art of the dramatic writer. Sardou had the quality, and through it was able to write intuitively the things that Sarah Bernhardt needed for her strange and eerie powers. Eleanor Calhoun knew Sardou well enough to spend a morning with him at Marly-le-Roy, where lie had a splendid house and park. Sardou had no prospects of literary success at one time, and to cap all, his doctor ordered complete rest for a year. Neither his economic position nor his nervously creative temperament could stand such a situation. Still, he grew more fragile, and at last the police arrested him as a girl, masquerading in male attire. He decided to go on working, if need be to the death. But he got hold of a discarded donkey, mounted thereon, and set off for fresh air and sunshine, saying :" Go where thou wilt, my friend; I confide myself to thy taste and good behaviour." Tlie patient ass took him to the splendid old villa at Marly, and with ironic feelings the great Breton contrasted his own lot with that of those who could dwell in such houses. He went on with his pilgrimage and his writing. Many plays were refused. Then came the day. Sardou was acclaimed a dramatic king; gold was poured out to him. And he returned with his friend, the donkey, and bought the house. And, like Balaam, but with better understanding, he spoke thus :— ."Never will I abandon thee. Thou hast been my comrade in hard times. .Thou sha.lt share my joy. Thou shaft have rest in a field "to thyself, and the juiciest nettles to eat, of rather thou shalt have artichokes; and when thou diest I will drop a tear on thy tomb." There one has the heart of' him who wrote "La Tosca."