A NEW MYSTERY PLAY

Evening Star, Issue 17379, 15 June 1920, Page 6

A NEW MYSTERY PLAY

After failing to make the sorrows of U^dipus_reai to the Paris public by means ot an immense complicated spectacle at the Cirque d Hiver—a spectacle which was neither Ureek nor French, accompanying a poem which frequently was not poetry— M. Germer, the Beerbohm Tree oi France has succeeded (writes the Paris correspondent oi ' Ihe Times') in making the most sceptical and sophisticated audience to be found in any city in the world accept and welcome with sincere feeling the story of tne birth of Christ as interpreted from the early Middle Ages by peasants to peasants in Provence. _' La Grande Pastorale' is a modem version by two capable authors of the old mysteries, pastorales, and moralities of 1 rovence. It naturally has the aid of every stage device of lighting, color, and music, but what strikes the spectator most is that the elaboration of the production has been so subordinated to the simplicity ot the central idea that, thanks to the superb imagination of M. Gemier, the audience forgets the modern conditions, and feels a.s though it had witnessed real Provencal village acting for the benefit of its own religious emotion at the greatest and simplest tragedy in the world's history. There are moments when M. Gemier has been unable to dominate his own imagination, hut they are rare. On the whole, this extraordinary spectacle proceeds through its three "acts with everincreasing intensity, and the culminating scene of the Holy Infant in the manger surrounded by_ adoring Provencal peasants is memorable in the annals of the modern stage. *Of its color Veronese might be proud; of its simplicity it is difficult to speak too highly; of its power to impress the great cheerless building there is nightly witness _in the irresistible movement of the audience. One detail is significant. The authors, though living in a sophisticated age, when all the emotions have been classified and pigeon-holed, have not feared to make the funny .man funny, even when adoring at the _ manger. _ This may stand for the 6pirit, not religious so much as simple, which has made this elaborate production a triumph which M. Gemier has scarcely equalled. Wagner would have recognised in 'La Grande Pastorale ' a step towards his own ideal of ma-king all the arts coordinate in one rich yet simple harmony.