The Play
Skinner, R. Dana
104 THE COMMONWEAL June 2, 1926 THE...
...Senorita Meller indulges in results...
...The songs themselves-or episodes, if you her body...
...Prrblicatia;ss Department He must have thought of children who 1312 Massachusetts Ave., N. W., Washington, D. C. Are giant-like to me and you...
...She sings fourteen This is the essence, too, of all truly great acting-but with songs, each in a different costume, and accompanies each with the difference that in a full-length role, the artist has the assista certain amount of acting...
...DANIEL SARGENT...
...If her costume One approach to an answer is to record one's personal ex- is Spanish, her soul, for the moment, might be that of a peasant perience during her performance...
...but the fact remains that many persons who by someone else...
...There is only one difficulty in presenting American productions of Gilbert and Sullivan, and that lies in the diction of the average American actor...
...lolanthe, on the other hand, as staged by Winthrop Ames, is perhaps the most perfect piece of work of this kind I have ever seen...
...She is at all times alone on the ance of time, of plot, of dramatic action, and of the clash of stage against a background of black velvet curtains...
...104 THE COMMONWEAL June 2, 1926 THE PLAY By R. DANA SKINNER The Art of Raquel Meller of multiple personality...
...As she thinks and feels, so is she in with great repose, excellent variety, and impeccable diction...
...Charm of Early America This is not true of the cast of Iolanthe...
...songs are, for the most part, popular, and frequently give Senorita Meller has but a few minutes, alone, to accomplish but small indication in their musical content of the mood what most actresses attempt in two hours with generous assistthey are intended to convey or of the episodes they relate...
...Some case...
...That is the tragedy of thousands...
...Just as in a thousand of her program that moderate enjoyment which comes from varieties of trees, you could never mistake a tree for a bird, seeing a pleasing stage presence, an adequate use of gesture, a so Meller makes it plain that in a dozen varieties of peasant growing intimacy with the audience ; and from hearing a costume, you could never mistake a peasant for an aristocrat familiar type of song sung in an agreeable though small voice, or for a city-dweller...
...And yet her fingers more than meet Around my heart and its heart-beat...
...In the review, By the Way, mentioned below, I could not but notice how every single syllable enunciated by the English actors carried to The the farthest reaches of the house, and without apparent effort...
...From this I think we can gather the extraordinary list of conditions and provisos...
...That is the essential tained a lurking suspicion that no one could really measure and distinguishing quality of her art-her power to empty herup to the Meller myth...
...Up to a certain point, make-up and costume can But, of course, the outward form has little to do with the do much to give the semblance of changing personality...
...Little by little, I began to where others, with equally sensitive souls, perhaps, remain like feel the fire of an inner genius which could so alter and trans- caged birds, forever unable to give their message of human form itself from minute to minute as to create a clear illusion understanding to the world about them...
...Ames can rightfully claim this as a masterpiece...
...The Her shining hair is like the light reasons for a college education, the choice of college, Which dawns behind a mountain-height...
...She throws her whole applause...
...I had an opportunity of seeing the revised spring edition this week, and found it to be an utterly delightful evening's entertainment...
...The other characters to bring the final portrait to its perfection...
...Moreover, as I said earlier, she does it against the The nearest approach to their general type is the song with blighting handicap of distinctly popular and undramatic music...
...Brief Notes T HERE is an interesting contrast well worth noting in the current revivals of the two Gilbert and Sullivan operas, Pinafore and Iolanthe...
...Miss Brice has a touch of genius, and might succeed...
...force into those qualities which are universal...
...Outwardly, her performance is simple...
...methods...
...Ten Cents a Copy Eight Dollars a Hundred I think I know what our Lord meant, NATIONAL CATHOLIC WELFARE CONFERENCE That heaven falls to the violent...
...A dozen artists.--among them Fanny Brice herself- actors-never the great ones-seem to rely entirely on these might set out to do exactly the same thing and fail utterly...
...In the mean- surface changes...
...WHY A CATHOLIC COLLEGE giants EDUCATION ? The blue in my small daughter's eyes Is gentler than the summer skies, This booklet prepared by the Bureau of Education of And yet their gentleness can be the National Catholic Welfare Conference submits facts on college education which should be placed before every The might that makes a child of me...
...Take a dozen such songs, some gay, some sad, some same role for days or weeks at a time, Meller must pass from humorous, others pathetic, and you have a fair idea of the one character to another in the space of a few minutes and outward form of Senorita Meller's repertory-with which, un- become a dozen different characters in the lapse of two hours...
...She has given the myth sons and to make these persons alive and understandable across substance and reality...
...trance march of the noble peers has seldom been staged by any producer...
...Yet this artist has rapidly won a secure place to refill the vessel, one at a time, with a dozen different perin American hearts and admiration...
...being able to think and feel, not as herself, but as the uniIt remained for the second half of the program to cast the versal type of the character she becomes...
...New York THAT English review, By the Way, which crept so quietly into New York and ended by having a far more successful run than the more famous Chariot's Revue, is soon going to make its appearance in Boston and other cities...
...There was a distinct change in the quality rare for us to find them so fastidious about appearing in of applause as the program advanced-a progress through America at all that they postpone their sailings numerous pleasure to admiration, and at last tc downright enthusiasm times, and at last consent to come only after imposing an and self-forgetfulness...
...paying European artists well for the honor of their presence Nor do I think that my experience was very different from here, whether in concert or at the Metropolitan, but it is those around me...
...The lines are far SALON OF ANTIQUE FURNITURE AND WORKS OF ART more audible than in Pinafore, but still lack that crispness so essential to the full richness of Gilbert's wit...
...The genius of a few is their ability to express the universal emotions of these mute thousands...
...A more delicious scene than the en...
...Fifth Ave...
...The public was curious, but not self completely of the person known as Senorita Meller, and wholly cordial...
...Altman & Co...
...student about to complete high school training...
...Torrents of pub- that I was in the presence of greatness-greatness, to be sure, licity extending over the last two or three years had created operating through the simplest and almost childlike forms, but a mood of challenging expectancy...
...The lead- school...
...In what, then, does her particular art lie...
...The former has been staged as a vast spectacle with a consequent loss of that intimate quality which the Gilbert lyrics demand...
...and her art is none other than that of But I was certainly not deeply stirred...
...particular quality of Meller's art-that which gives it the Whether it was Senorita Meller or her press-agents who force of cumulative and accelerated emotion...
...they may be intelligently guided in their choice of college Her tiny hands can scarcely fold A cope should be in the hands o f The smallest locket in their hold...
...Not every man with June 2, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 105 the soul of a poet can put his dreams into words...
...We are accustomed to none the less authentic and rare...
...The her-defied prejudice and scepticism, won affection as well as surface is left to take care of itself...
...respond to the inner change she creates, is the happy prefer to call them that-had greater variety and demanded a accident which makes an effective artist out of one person...
...every Catholic high school student...
...which Fanny Brice once thrilled many audiences-He's My And whereas the actress, under normal conditions, lives in the Man...
...I began to grudge the passing IN one sense, Raquel Meller made her New York debut minutes, to have that consciousness, which comes so seldom, under the most trying of circumstances...
...means to gain their effects...
...Meller is one of those few-warm, articulate, understanding...
...No better answer can be found than the one ing figures in this review are Miss Cecily Courtenidge and given in her husband, Jack Hulburt...
...aided, she set about to give an entire evening's entertainment Meller does not achieve this result by merely superficial at an admission price comparable to seats for the opera...
...Any one of her created this impression of Olympian aloofness, I am in no song-portraits might have been as well or possibly better done position to say...
...finer touch of characterization...
...WHAT COLLEGE THIS SEPTEMBER ? Relatively speaking, it is the cleanest show of its kind that I have seen in many months, indicating once more the plain No more important question can be asked a parent fact that it is not smut, but good clean humor and the work when a son or daughter is about to graduate from high of fine artists that really keep the box-offices busy...
...and all the other important elements involved in higher And yet she comes with me to play education are placed before student and parent so that As if 'twere I that owned the day...
...I felt during the first half girl of France, or Roumania, or Holland...
...But you can quickly detect mediNo one has ever attempted the same thing here on the same ocre work of this sort by its accompanying exaggerations in scale, so that we have no standard by which to compare the gesture, voice, and mannerism...
...When she becomes a peasant girl, she gathers time, we do know that Meller has swept everything before to herself the peasant nature oI all ages and places...
...They have a rare ability for informal entertainment...
...Her artistry is that of great economy in It would be a fascinating experiment to watch...
...her outer appearance...
...no exaggerations...
...ance...
...But no one else-within my knowledgewould otherwise have felt well disposed toward her, enter- could have done as well in all of them...
...the gap of footlights...
...That her face and full spell over me...
...It will be reviewed more completely in these pages next week, and these few lines merely call attention to a production combining with most exquisite grace the two qualities of showmanship and theatrical poetry...
Vol. 4 • June 1926 • No. 4
