p
n
Theatrical
r
"Hedda Gabler," Rebecca West in
"Rosmersholm," "Frou-Frou," / "Leah
Kleschna," and "Mary of Magdala,"
the latter surcharged with nobility, ma-
jesty and eloquence.
And the woman who has done all of
these wondrous things is now to come
to us in a character as widely separ-
ated from them, one and all, as are the
Southern Cross and the Star of the
North. "Mrs. Bumpstead-Leigh" is the
wife of an English clergyman, allied to
the nobility, but her place of nativity
was Missionary Loop, Indiana, U. S. A.
and the source of the fortune, which
she had used to the best possible ad-
vantage, in buying a social career, had
been accumulated by "Old Jim Savles,"
her father, in the manufacture of vari-
ous patent medicines, which he had ex-
ploited with the usual spread-eagle
methods.
The role is one of two distinct and
widely separated phases, since "Mrs.
Bumpstead-Leigh," when alone with the
other members of the Sayles family,
"reverts to type,' and becomes the burr-
voiced Hoosier to the life. 1)ut when in
the presence of her' aristocratic friends.
she is the personification of everything
English. The transitions from one side
of the role to the other provide the hu-
mor of the characterization, and in the
MRS, FISKE WINS
RESPECT OF ALL
Great Actress is Everywhere Spoken
of in Terms of Reverent
Appreciation.
HOTELS EAGER TO WELCOME HER.
"No man is a hero to his valet" and
very few women are heroines to their
maids, butl Mrs. Fiske is one woman who
is always spoken of in terms of almost
reverential appreciation by each and
every one who is or has ever been
closely associated with her. This is a
tribute to the woman that they know,
the gentle, kindly, synpathetic nature
back of the artist that is known to the
ptuelic.
\ member of Mrs. Fiske's business
stai, who has been closely associated
with her for several years, said recently
that he had never known her to do an
unkind thing, while a volume could he
tilled with the sweet, womanly and
charitable incidents in which she was
concerned that had come under his per-
sonal notice.
Mrs. Fiske hies a very reserved, al-
n st a secluded life. Of all of our
cou-try's prominent women, particularly
those on the stage, she is perhaps the
ne least frequently seen in public. She
rarely goes to the theater during the
short periods of the year when she is
not playing herself, and when she does,
it is only to slip quietly in, heavily
veiled, and seek an obscure seat, usually
in the last row where she can be en-
tirely unobserved. How different from
ie imiany of her profession who con-
sider it a reflection upon their profes-.
sional dimity not to occupy a prominent
box and whose "temperaments" are
sorely ruffled if one cannot be placed at
their disposal.
Not only in this but in every other di-
rection is Mrs. Fiskp said to be entirely
free from those "idiosyncracies" of
genius that are in reality nothing bit
egotistical "brainstorms." For instance,
no one is more welcome in the hotels
the country over than Mrs. Fiske. Of
many stage stars this cannot be said,
for their demands are such as to make
like a burden to the entire staff from
hell boys to manager. There is nothing
of this with Mrs. Fiske. Her only re-
quirement is quiet, and to obtain that
she will sacrifice everything else in the
way of accommodations. if she arrives
in a given city during P convention or
sonie other gathering- w'iich taxes the
hotel facilities and such accommoda-
tions as she usually occupies are not to
he had, she cheerfully accepts the situ-
ation with no word of complaint. And
her loyalty to hotels where she has been
comfortable is amazing! She still stops
in several cities at the same hotels she
knew in the first days of her stellar
career as Minnie Maddern, even though
the cities have grown completely away
from them, and contain luxurious ex-
amples of the modern art of hotel build-
ing and furnishing. Her advance repre-
sentative has frequently expressed his
surprise at her selection of hotels but
she has quietly said, "They have always
been nice to me there and if I should
go anywhere else it niight hurt their
feelings." And hurting anyone's
ings is something as foreign to
f eel-
Mrs
I
Mrs. Fiske as Mrs. Bumstead-Leigh, at the WVhitney Monday May 8.
Fiske as a flaw in her art.
Mrs. Fiske lives a very plain and a
very simple daily life. Her tastes are
so refined and so modest that she is the
despair of the milliners and the mod-
istes, and her one extravagance is books.
NOTED CRITIC ENTHIUSES
OVER GERMAN PLAYERS.
Of the German Players from the Mil-
waukee Pabst theater whose engagement
for two performances at the Whitney
theatre is announced for May j6. the
eminent critic of the Milwaukee Journal
says:
"Art and worthy tradition have a
home in Milwaukee in which nourish-
ment and proper care are afforded. The
home is the Pabst theater, and the food
and attention are given by the members
of the German stock company. , The
writer is just fresh from an experience
which is entirely unique in his life: he
attended the stock company-s perform-
ance without the necessary equitpment of
a knowledge of (erman, and he was.
moved and pleased as he has not been'
since he.came to Milwaukee. There is
no shoddiness in the work of these
players; every moment of the play is
filled with seriousness and authority.
Art is attended."-.----- "With ,,all
modesty it is only honest to record that
to he'ar the German Players is to make
a man determine to brush up the little
German he possesses and start out to
learn the language:m He is missing too
much, ..nd too much of the best dram-
atic work that is done in Milwaukee."
Under the name of "Countess Gucki,"
von Schoenthan's comedy, "Comtesse
Guckerl," which the German Players
will present at the Whitney May 16,
matinee and night, played a long en-
gagement at Wallack's theatre, New
York, under the direction of the late
Augustine Daly.
WRITES 'GENUINELY
HUMOROUS PLA'
In "Comtesse Guckerl", Franz vi
S Choentlian is Seen at
11S Best.
I)IAI0aUE SPARKLES WITH WI
The play selected for the Ann Arb
appearance of the German Players fro
the Pabst stock company, Milwauke
is Kranz v( n Schoenthan's semi-histc
ical comedy, "Comtesse Guckerl," whi
will be presented at the Whitney Satu
day, May 16.
It is always quite proper to laugh
something worth while, something th
is legitimate, something whose app<
is more to the intelligence than to t
eye or ear alone and especially som
thing that is beyond and without t
greedy grasp of the "movies," whi
now are so rapidly distorting genei
conceptions of dramatic art and idea
All these "somethings" constitute t
sparkling wit and humor in "Comtes
Guckerl." There is that something abc
this product of Schoenthan's imagir
tion that inspires reverence and av
-One becomes obsessed with the feeli
that underneath all the wit and hum
there is the magic touch of the mast
playwright.
The play's heroine is a lovely Vie
nese countess, who adjusts the hea
affairs of a pair of bashful cousins afi
putting to rout a meddlesome interlop
who forthwith proceeds to pay court
the countess. The scene is laid
Karlsbad in i88, and the historic se
ting adds attracti.veness in that su
names as Napoleon, Gocth'e and B<
thoven are tossed about in a mant
calculated t impress the auditor,
countess even saying she sat next
Goethe in'a theater.
The gay little comedy takes its nai
from the widow's lifelong habit of c
recting her handsome eyes straight in
the faces of those about her, in a w
that causes every being in trousers wit
in their radius to lay his heart at h
dainty feet. So does a dauntless a
gallant young Russian officer lay sie
to her hand and also to that of h
young niece. Repulsed by the latter, l
after many difficulties, succeeds in wi
ning the countess.
When Mrs. Fiske appears at the Wh
ney theatre May 18, a prominent met
ber of her cast will be Kenneth Hunt
the young actor who played the part
Octavius in William Faversham's pi
duction of "Julius Cosar" last year.
i
COMIN(I ATTRACTIONS
Whitney Theatre.
May 36-German Players (matinee and
night).
May i8-Mrs. Fi'ske.
Majestic Theatre.
Photoplays de Luxe. Complete change
of program daily.
TRIUMPHS IN "MRS.
BUMSTEAD -LEIGH"
Mrs. Fiske Exceeds Expectations
Heroine in Harry Smith's'
Latest Play.
as
CAREER EMBRACES MANY PARTS.
Whenever it is announced that Mrs.
Fiske is to come to Ann Arbor in a new
play, or one that is new to us, specu-
lation naturally concerns itself with the
type of role she herself will portray in
it. During her brilliant career she has
shown such a remarkable versatility
that it would be difficult to mention any
one style of stage portraiture that has
not known the touch of her artistic
panurgy, and yet in "Mrs. lumpsteaa-
Leigh," in which she is to be seen at
the Whitney theater May 18, we may
well expect to see a new Mrs. Fiske. .
The play itself is said to be the light-
est in which Mrs. Fiske has appeared
since her second, and by far the greater,
stage career began, with her perform-
aoce of Nora in "A Doll's House,"
given for the benefit of a New York
charity in i893. Prior to that per-
formance, which brought about her re-
turn to the regular stage, she had been
the Minnie Maddern of "Fogg's Ferry,"
"Caprice," "In -Spite of All," and
"Featherbrain" fame. In taking up the
second period of her career, which is of
course, much the more important, she
became almost at once the leader of a
new school in the art of the theatre.
This was the intellectual and also the
naturalistic school.
To this period and this letting in of
the dramatic light, belong her memor-,
able portrayal of Nora-as the public
in general came to know it-and her
great impersonations of ",Tess," "Becky
Sharp," "Mary of Magdala," and °Sal-
vation Nell." It is doubtful, however,
if the power and the pathos, the finish
and the intimate analysis, of these great
living portraits could have been possible
without the wide, varied, arduous tram-
ing and the strength-taxing industry of
her childhood. And childhood it was,
for Minnie Maddern was a recognized
star at fifteen. Her natural capacities;
were the soil through which the finest'
art of our stage, nurtured by experience.
reached the full bloom of its beauty.
Mrs. Fiske's portrayal of Nora, which
will ever remain one of her greatest,
was remarkable for its variety, its deli-
cate shadings, for a charm which in or-
dinary hands the character could not
possess, and for the thorough merging
of personality in character. It was a
Nora that could be seen and with which
one could feel. These same qualities.
differently exerted and shaped to differ-
ent en s, were conspicuous in what will
alway s be looked upon as one of the
most campelling figures in the art of
the stage-Mrs. Fiske's "Tess."
Conforming not at all to the physical
picture of lardy's heroine, Mrs. Fiske,
by what was the very essence of genius,.
;reated a new "Tess," one whose very
mind and soul were pictured with a pro-
found conviction and authority. No
portrayal ever known before or since
received such universal tributes and
recognition for its power, beauty,
pathos and completeness. It _was in
this wonderful portrayal that Mrs
Fiske proved herself such a master of
emotional. suggestion, her artistic meth-
ods being concerned as much with the
repression of emotion 0s with its mani-
festations. She swept away the conven-
tions of decades and, as Edith Wharton
said, "gave a superbly living present-
ment of Hardys heroine."
Mrs. Fiske's "Becky Sharp." show-
ing totally different phases of her genius,
was received with an acclaim practi-
cally equal to that elicited by her "Tess."
Her imagination, her ability to encom-
pass the soul of a character as well as
its externals, her spontaneity of method
and her perfect technique, her scintil-
lating powers in comedy andt her ability
to so deeply prove the tragic. made of
her "Becky" a portrayal that will live as
one of wonderful mastery and skill.
One of the most striking things in
Mrs. Fiske's career was her Italian
woman in the one-act tragedy, "Little
Italy." in this her personality was
compleetely submerged. In make-up. in
gesture, in bearing, even in-move- eni,
she was the living character, and many
critics have held that her art was never
more fine or more ttrue.
in "The New fork Idea," Mrs. Fiske
displayed a comedy gift-shown only in
earlier performances of "l)ivorcons"-
unequalled in our time. It was fairly
dazzling in its ,parkle, its deftness, its
brightness, its swiftly-movinug tran-
sitions.
In "Salvation Nell" Mrs. Fiske gave
a profoundly moving and intimate pic-
ture of the child of the slums, one whose
brain and body were numb from the
struggle of life, but one whose soul
awakened to the beauties that love can
tbring even to the lowliest.
Other characters in which Mrs.
Fiske will always be remembered include
fans Marlowe, Leading Man
with the German Players.
Indiana presentment, Mrs. Fiske is said
to be--and there is ample evidence to
support this statement-"excrutiatingly
funny." Such a thing seems almost in-
:redible, but being borne out, one could
scarce imagine a more convincing proof
of Mrs. Fiske's wonderfully varied art-
stic equipment.
It is an interesting prospect.
A Scene from "Mrs. Bu stead-Leigh," Which Mrs. Fiske Will Bring to the Whitney May 18.