THE DIVINE SARAH AT 67.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 110, 30 June 1911, Page 3

THE DIVINE SARAH AT 67.

(“New Idea.”) There was talk, some time ago, of Sarah Bernhardt coming again to Australia and New Zealand. The nows was received with mixed feelings, the general ’ impression being that it would he but a burnt out personality we should see. Indeed, when, such pictures as that published in the “New Idea,” showing the aged Bernhardt in the .part of the youthful L’Aiglnn appeared, people, smiled and said “Nonsense!” But from the pen of a level-headed Now York critic (Sidney G. P. Cpryn),‘who is not accustomed to flights of | fancy, ,we receive this intimate impression ; On J)ecemlKT 11/Sarah Bei’iiharclt appeared at J the 1 'Globe 'Theatre Jin the role of L’Aiglon! Next night fjho played Jeannie d’Arc. In both She was magnificent,' because the ,miracle of the spirit's triumph, over life flesh was carried out 'lip full view of the audience. It was an old woman who canid upon the stage in the opening scene.' (She is over sixty-seven.—, Ed.) " her walk was feeble, her movements were stiff and weak, and there was that ‘pathetic effect of pinching around tile . mouth that no human art can charm right away. There wore hundreds of women in that audience who had come in the vain hope of learning the secrets of perpetual youth,, and for the moment it .seemed that tlio great actress herself had lost them, and that time i’t least had thrown an effective, dart, . But it was not for long,. t|ncl that was the stupefying miracle of tlio tiling. Sarah Bernhardt’.s Jsecrets of‘yogth arc within herself.' 'They ’ have little or nothing to do" with cosmetics, or corsets, because , the marvel happened in mid-stage and in full view of a thousand men and women who would swear by their fathers’ tombs that the face and figure /changed whil? ‘they watched her, and that the witchery of youth descended upon her like a mantle. Ten minutes after Sarah Bernhardt, appeared upon the stage she was no longer acting L’Aiglon. She was 'L’Aiglon, And tlio next night she was Jeannie d’Arc, the .living, moving, rhapsodising, agonising Maid. It. was not a matter of imitation, but of transmutation. Never was there a more tremendous scene than that between L’Aiglon and Metternich. One wonders if such a scene actually occurred, and if L’Aiglon acquitted himself with half so much concentrated passion as Mine. Bernhardt. The whole house rose in their seats to applaud the passion and despair of it. It was all; so. boyish after that first painful ,'moment before 'old ago was swallowed up iii genius. , There was none of that disposition that lesser artists sometime show to jump from great scene to groat scene and to save themselves in the interim. What Madame Bernhardt finds to do she does it with her might. The word unimportant is not in her vocabulary, ami she never forgone moment dcsceVids from her pinnacle of perfection. Nothing finer of' its kind was over (lone than her portrayal of L’Aiglon at* Vlie moment when visions of empiiti sweep thrbviglt' his mind while Kis'listless halidS yet hold the toys Hf‘ J liis childhood; ; Exquisite, too, wb 3 rd the Ijlandishinefits jftiat he showers upon the old emperor, -and the byplay with Flambeau was frankly delicious. ’ And the audience knew •PM, . great dramatic miracle. ,ien tunes the curtain rose and fell after the first qefay and flowers fell upon the stage .as.,''the snow (ell jin the. street outqiue n ' Aiid at, the/end of the fifth aqt:,.there was.,,..another ovation as ,gyeat as 'the first ?i . ~ ( she was no lesMipurvellous as Jeannptq’Arc. In fact, as a mental tour tie, force she t,I ip n as L’Aiglon.,," Madame Bernhardt can proba,biy. act a scene of valent, scorcliipg) passion better than any actress that ~'iuis. ever lived, but as Jeanne she, ghqws... a mental strength that is probably the higher form of art. . ''i)unm£ f thp,trial scene she stands' for' forty imputes beside a table and answer's the questions of the mitred ruffians Who are tli noting for her blond. There,was ‘iV declaihation and no gestures. The overwhelming power of the scene was in its simplicity. She was a young, innocent and ignorant maiden who would have been overwhelmed by her surroundings hut from the lofty dignity that came from a consciousness of her spiritual mission. You could see the village girl and the saint merged iu each other. Intellectual ignorance' arid a wisdom not of this world wont hand-in-hand. And then at last, yielding to cunning and unbending persistence, she signs the recantation, hut the notes of the' Angolas strike upon her earl as the same angel voices !that called (her to battle, and she snatches' hack the fatal paper and chooses death as the better part. Madame Bernhardt played Jeannie d’Arc iu 1889. Probably she plays it better now than she did then.