MADAME BERNHARDT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9788, 3 March 1910, Page 2

MADAME BERNHARDT.

—.»■ —- OFFERED £IOOO A WEEK. Madame Sarab Bernhardt has not yet made up her mind whether she will appear at the London Coliseum or not, says a Paris correspondent. She had a tempting offer, but did not realise that the house in which she waa to appear was a music-hall. There lies the whole question. It is, of course, superfluous to say that Madame Bernhardt has never been seen in a music-hall except as a spectator. To appear there as an actress would be a new, perhaps a dangerously new departure. Madame Bernhardt is still considering whether alio will make the innovation. She is naturally well acquainted with the theatres of London, in so many of which she has so often acted. But she may be pardoned for not remembering exactly what the Coliseum is, though she lias plaved in London since it was opened. She may have imagined from the Greek termination of the name that it was something like what the old Lyceum was in Sir nenry Irving's day. At all events, when the offer was made to her she agreed' to consider it. The terms were tempting, even for Madame Bernhardt: £4OOO for twentyfour performances in a month, each performance in a sketch to laat ten minutes. This works out at a good deal over a guinea and a half 0 minute. The actress agreed to cousider the proposal and the terms, and is still considering them. would accept them, but the truth of the matter is that the term "music-hall rather frighten/? her. Bho did not at first, when negotiations began, understand that the Coliseum was not a theatre or the "legitimate drama, and she was told that, besides herself, such actresses aa Miss Ellen forry and Miw> Mario Tempest would appeal. Madame Bernhardt is, of couxso, entirely ignorant of the curious rules by which dramatic sketches may be enacted in London music-hall®, and with which she is not personally in any way concerned. Her standpoint is tills: She will appear in legitimate drama at the Coliseum or elsowhoro in London. Bho will not "do * turn" in a muniohall " after or before acrobats, i aiioy dancos, or learned animals," as she put it herself. Bho added, though unnecessarily, that her career aH an artiste is a sufficient guarantee that sue would never consent to any exhibition of that kind. In short, I gathered from what Madamo Barah Bernhardt Raid herself, that the whole thing i« a question of tact. Onco before she refused to appear in a theatre because the curtain, when it came down after each act, was phwtered with advertisement* for cocoa, champagne, and motorHaving such «cruple« it is not likely that «he will, for example, act the death scene of Phodro between two turns of tho limit in eccentricity and Herr 9<>-and-So with his performing dogs. It is not only unlikely, but unthinkable.