SARAH BERNHARDTS NEW PLAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9082, 16 June 1888, Page 3 (Supplement)

SARAH BERNHARDT S NEW PLAY.

Mme. Sarah Bernhardt combines all the talents in her spare self. When she is nob acting she is cither painting or " sculpting," and Londoners, as well as Parisians, have seen how she excel? in both these art*. She also writes exceedingly well, and the criticisms she published on the Salon during ono summer that sho happened to be in Europe were remarkable for their freshness. She has now broken frefh ground, for she made her debut recently as a dramatic authoress. " L'Aveu," as her one-act piece is called, is intensely dramatic ; the action is rapid to the flsiiottemcnt. The subject of the slirot story is not seen in the flesh. It is a sick child, which is tended with passionate devotion by its mother, whose husband, Gen. Comte do Kocca, a man much older than herself, is possessed of all the virtue?. Ho also is most anxious that the child's life shall be spared, and on that account ho urges the constant and continual presence of Robert, his nephew, in whoso medical skill he has great, faith. The General, however, finds himself continually in presence of an ill-disguised opposition on tho part of his wife. At ln-st an accident puts him in full possession of tho truth. Robert haa on one occasion taken a cowardly advantago of Marthe, and tho infant is his. The -wife's confession, which gives ite title to the piece, is its strongest scene. Determined that no solfish consideration shall imperil the child's lifo, the General asks Robert to go into the next room to hoc it; but when he comas out he taxes him with his crime, and, on his refusing to fight with his benefactor, hands him a pii»tol that he may blow his own brains out. At tho moment that Robert is about to pull the trigger a cry is heard from the adjoining room—the child has died and the General bids his nephew live. The subject is not particularly pretty, but, as I have said, ifc is worked out with considerable skill and effect. How Madame Sarah Bernhardt herself would have played tho part of tho conscience-haunted and distracted mother may readily bo imagined, and the great actress, instead of letting the play be given at tho would have done better to have kept it for her own use in any theatre in which she might be playing. —Paris despatch to London Telegraph.