“DANTE” AT DRURY LANE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 696, 9 July 1903, Page 17

“DANTE” AT DRURY LANE.

"Dante/' as produced at Drury Lane Theatre, is, first and foremost, a stupendous piece of stage management. It can scarcely be said that “ the play is the thing?’ One marvellous tableau follows upon another until eye and mind are almost bewildered, but, as a drama, “ Dante ” is defective in construction and lacking in sustained interest. In this play of Sardou’s we have little to do with Dante the poet. We have Dante the lover, the fallen politician, the returned ex'le, the patriot who breathes defiance of the corrupt instruments of . the church, and leads gallant rescue parties ; finally, we have a Dante who “ acts and speaks, not like a man, but like a prophet.” But in every situation he is a pervading and picturesque presence. In the prologue, outside the Tower of Hunger at Pisa, we find him in the avowal of a guilty passion for Pia, the wife of Nello della Pietra, of whose child, Gemma, he is the father. This is quite an. imaginary amour, for the invention of which we are indented to M. Sardou, but most of the subsequent story hangs upon it, for Dante, in ail bis wanderings, thinks of these two ; nor does he find his sentiments towards them at all inconsistent with a mystical devotion to the memory of the dead Beatrice. When the first act opens, Dante has ueen in exile for ten years,: and returns to Florence disguised as a monk when the sun'ny city .• is revelling in the springtide fete, in a vji-ion Beatrice has . warned him that Pia and Gemma require his protecting care, and the play promises at this point to cleve'op upon coherent dramatic lines, but the authors —for M. Moreau is associated with M. Sardou—-have caused confusion in their desire to drag in the episode of Paolo and Francesca. Pia dies in a marshy retreat to which she has been consigned by her jealous , husband, who, at the same time, is resiolved to immure in a convent Grimma, —whose existence is a perpetual reminder of the infidelity of hisi wife. The convent scene is extraordinary. Altars, dim lights, robed figures—all these make a singularly impressive scene. Pia dies, and Gemma disappears. It is then that Dante is exhorted by Beatrice —again in a vision, and a very beautiful one—to brave the terrors of hell and probe the mysteries •which vex his soul. This brings us to the third act, which is made up of seven wonderful tableaux, in which we witness the tortures of the guilty and the damned, and finally emerge in the valley of Asphodels, where, in a scene of surpassing beauty, ; Dante holds converse with Pia, and, amidst supernatural melodies, is( encouraged to. resume his way again amongst the mortals. But he himself has become something more than mortal. He pronounces the doom of the immoral Pope, the Cardinal Legate falls before him as before a superior force, and his own

friends can scarcely recognise him. Sir Henry Irving acted throughout with fine dramatic power, and everybody expressed wonder at the splendid strength of his voice, and tlhe sustaeined effectiveness of his elocution. The flames which lash and flutter about the talking corpses of the two Cardinals and the Commander of the Templars in the Drury Lane performance of “ Dante ” are a vast improvement upon the old order of things, and their effect is most convincing to the eye of the spectator. Powerful shafts of light arc thrown upwards from openings in the stage, arid with them are blown, by means of electric revolving fans, captive strips of the thinnest flame coloured silk. Curlin’g, and swaying, and trembling upwards in the strong draught and . the powerful light, these strips of silk, which are of various len/gths, present the best imitation of fire that could possibly be devised, and residents in the Inferno will recommend them to stage managers, not only on the strength of their realistic qualities, but also for the reason that they are cool, clean, and perfectly 7 harmless.