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tiresome.

demeanor, and expression that are produced upon the mind by the outward aspect of the body. But, in contemplation, the aspect of his Falstaff grows The face is inexpressive, or, rather, its expression is set: it is like a sculptor's model of the face of Falstaff and, practically, it never changes. The stolidity of it is the inevitable consequence of the mass of hair, wax, grease-paint, and (apparently) what actors call "plumpers"-wads of cotton to distend the cheeks. It is not possible for a man whose humor is saturnine and glacial to invest himself with a humorous personality that is richly unctuous, mellow, copious, joyous,-the comic exuberance of a droll animal. Tree's Falstaff was waggish and satirical, replete with excess of agile action, nimble in mind and trickily effective.

This comedian is a good artist, and though in this part he did not diffuse a glamour of illusion, it was because a feat of professional skill, a strenuous effort of virtuosity, must necessarily be less authoritative and convincing than a genuine personation of character. By natural aptitude, bent of mind, affinity of temperament, predisposition of taste, or whatever motive it be which impels the artistic nature in its choice of characters, Tree is no more fitted for Falstaff than John Drew is for Hamlet or Tyrone Power for Charles Surface. To see Tree at his best

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HERBERT BEERBOHM-TREE AS FALSTAFF

(In "The Merry Wives of Windsor")

"I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelry and shallow,-a death I abhor; for the water swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy!"

ACT III., Sc. 5

it is essential to see him as Demetrius, in "The Red Lamp," or as Captain Swift, or, perhaps, as Gringoire. In Falstaff the wonder is not that he does it well but that he does it at all. Much of the comic effect produced by him in that part is due to the language of it, which is exceedingly droll. Some of

it, though, is due to the actor's unwarranted, clownish expedients of downright farce, which in Falstaff are incorrect. "The Merry Wives of Windsor," notwithstanding it contains some farcical elements, is not farce but comedy, rich in character and true in the portrayal of manners. A Falstaff who crawls on the floor, encumbered with the dress of the old fat woman of Brentford, as Tree's Falstaff does, while Ford belabors him over the buttocks, is nothing superior to the "slap-stick" clown of the circus. In several of his revivals Tree has provided the comedy with handsome dresses and scenery, some of the exterior scenes being dominated by views of the stately and venerable Windsor Castle.

SHAKESPEARE FRITTERED AT THE NEW THEATRE.

"And so went to the King's, and there saw 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,' which did not please me at all, in no part of it."-"PEPYS'S DIARY," August 15, 1667.

A performance of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" more incompetent and dreary than that given at the

New Theatre, January 26, 1910, has not been seen. Falstaff without humor, Ford without credibility, Mistress Ford without mirth, Evans and Caius without character, Page without meaning, Slender without comicality, Fenton without charm, and Mrs. Quickly without pungency constituted a ghastly group, depressing to behold and melancholy to remember. The comedy of "The Merry Wives" is intrinsically and ineradicably vulgar in subject, and when it is not brilliantly acted the indelicacy of its subject offends not only good taste, but tolerance. The usual custom, in presenting it, has been, after cleansing the text, to animate the acting in such a way as to divert attention from the element of coarseness in the story by brilliancy in the display of contrasted character and unctuous humor, those being the attributes in which the play is peculiarly rich. In the presentment made at the New Theatre the dialogue had not been thoroughly expurgated or judiciously altered, and a style of acting had been adopted which, being partly that of comedy and partly that of farce, was hybrid and ineffective, so that the representation became insufferably tedious. The scenery with which the play was invested, particularly that of the last act, was exceptionally fine, conveying a sense of stability, helping the effect of illusion, and presenting the merit,— infrequent on our Stage,-of rich, mellow, and deftly

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