Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, June 18, 1919Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, June 18, 1919
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
The appeal of _Hamlet_ is to the intelligence; that of _L'Aiglon_, so
obviously pathetic in his own eyes, is rather to the heart. Indeed the
intelligence of the audience is here often in trouble; for a
certain acquaintance with history is required and both actors and
stage-management offer little aid to the average ignorance. While
the more obvious and melodramatic situations--such as the death of
_L'Aiglon_ or the business of the sentry--are treated at great leisure,
it is assumed that all historical allusions, however necessary to an
understanding of the situation, will be as tedious to the audience as to
the players, and they are rushed through--as in the mirror scene---at a
pace that baffles our halting pursuit.
If any male character lends itself to interpretation by a woman, it
is such a character as _L'Aiglon_, who, for all his spasms of martial
ardour, was half feminine. And to this side of him, and not this side
alone, Miss MARIE LÖHR did justice in a performance of which her high
spirit had not underrated the difficulties. But it is a long and exigent
part, and there were times in the play when her physical strength was
overtaxed. It would have taken the voice of a strongish _basso_ to drown
the roar of a whole battlefield of ghostly warriors, with a military
band thrown in.
I am not sure that Miss LÖHR quite realised for us the _Duke of
Reichstadt's_ personality. I should not care to have the task myself,
for a good many complicated elements were mixed in his nature. As Mr.
Louis PARKER reminds you, a French father supplied him with ambition
and love of action, an Austrian grandfather with hesitancy, and Spanish
ancestors with fatalism, a very trying combination for even the original
_Eaglet_ to handle--a mere boy who had never so much as heard of
President WILSON'S League of Nation's. So it was excusable if Miss LÖHR
failed to make us completely realise a personality which was almost
certainly too much for the comprehension of its actual owner.
But she was always ah intriguing figure. Perhaps, indeed--for the
apparel does not always proclaim the man, and the _Eaglet_ was no
_Hamlet_ in the matter of his clothes--her rather striking costumes were
a source of too much distraction.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE EAGLE TRIES TO FLY.
Miss MARIE LÖHR.]
In a very large cast, whose identities were here and there a little
shadowy, the interest was so distributed that nobody except Miss LÖHR
had very much chance. But Mr. FISHER WHITE made a touching picture of
the weak old Austrian Emperor, torn between love of his grandchild and
fear of _Metternich_. _Metternich_ himself, in the person of Mr. HENRY
VIBART, seemed hardly sinister, enough for the part he had to play in
keeping the _Eaglet_ under the talons of the "two-headed fowl." But
it is perhaps difficult to look really sinister in the full official
uniform of a Chancellor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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