"BEYOND HUMAN POWER."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11843, 21 December 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

"BEYOND HUMAN POWER."

ST JERNE BJORNSON'S PLAY

PRODUCED AT THE ROYALTY. . It would be difficult to conceive a drama more utterly opposed to all the conventions of the modern English stage than Bjornstjerne Bjornson's play "Beyond Human Power," produced by Mrs. Patrick Campbell on October 7 at the Royalty Theatre.

The theme touches the deepest things in life —religious faith 1 and disbelief. The dialogue mainly consists of theological discussions. Yet the whole is a play that, with all its discursiveness, all its lack of what is called stagecraft, holds the audience, and forces one to admit against one's prejudices that it is in its essence dramatic. For good or, ill our theatre belongs to the world of amusement, and a pilay like this can have no permanent place in it. At the same time Mrs. Campbell is to be complimented on her artistic enterprise in producing a. work by a man who is at least a great writer, and in letting a London audience understand what is looked upon as drama in Germany and Norway. The play largely suffered from the acting. Mrs. Patrick Campbell was as wonderful and magnetic as ever, and Mr. J. Titheradge played with discretion and understanding. ' The other players, however,'as was to be expected, failed to realise the atmosphere of the drama.Daily Express.