MISS MARY MANNERING AND KYRLE BELLEW IN THE LADY OF LYONS," ACT II. repertory but seldom seen in these days, Quite likely those who saw "The Hunchback" revived by Miss Viola Allen or "The Lady of Lyons" brought from retirement by Mary Mannering and Kyrle Bellew determined in the solitudes of their own minds that the modern method is more prompt, realistic and moving, but the ceremonious style, the stately blank verse and the general literary value of the older plays possess a certain fascination which is missed from the work of contemporaneous dramatists. Possibly this is a necessary incident of literary evolution not to be deplored. The direct style is usually to be preferred, but the danger is that in the effort to be crisp and concise, beauty of thought and expression will be too often sacrificed. There must be a golden mean somewhere between the ceremonious literary manner of the old comedies, "The School of Scandal," "The Rivals," and "She Stoops to Conquer" among them, and the unadorned brevity of the current style. The past and the present may always be interchanging lessons and thus it was a happy thought when the parties I have named elected to close their season with plays written and produced almost threequarters of a century ago. Miss Allen had devoted her year to Marion Crawford's play. "In the Palace of the King," which is the modern statement of an old time romantic possibility. Miss Mannering finished her second year with "Janice Meredith," a revolutionary romance dramatized in modern sophomorical style without a touch of art, while Kyrle Bellew had killed man and triumphed gloriously every night in that other example of modern fiction, "A Gentleman of France." No great prepara tion this, we are bound to admit, for the stately periods of James Sheridan Knowles, who wrote "The Hunchback" or of Bulwer Lytton, who epitomized so many human passions in "The Lady of Lyons." But half a loaf is better than no bread, and while fair Mary Mannering was quite in a new field. Miss Allen and Mr. Bellew could fall back upon a versatile training which had boxed the compass of emotion and led them into MISS JULIA MARLOWE. As Mary Tudor in "When Knighthood Was in Flower." The unfamiliar garments create a sense of unrest or of actual embarrassment and the consequences are fatal to artistic results. When the stock companies flourished before the evolution of the combination system long runs of contemporaneous plays were almost unknown and the frequent changes in the theater bill enabled the actor to justify the dictum of the melancholy Jaques by playing many parts. From grave to gay, from lively to severe, he ranged at will, playing in turn classic and modern characters. Supporting Edwin Booth in Shakesperian roles, one week he might in a few days find himself in the train of Sothern, Lotta, Maggie Mitchell or Clara Morris. nearly all fields up to the swelling portals of grand tragedy. And thus a never ceasing round of labor brought with it compensation in an ease and versatility which the combination actor of the present time finds it extremely difficult to acquire. Long runs in a single character may bring greater polish to that special role but they are fatal to any wide range of experience, without which the best mental and artistic qualities of a man or a woman are in a measure inert and unpolished. As might have been expected the results of these excursions into older methods were agreeable without being altogether convincing. Aside from the principals, for whom there may be a special word, the people engaged were about as much at sea as if they had attempted any other unfamiliar task. In these latter days when ordinary dress is required in most plays, few actors learn to wear court costumes with ease and grace. The actors engaged in these past season revivals illustrated almost without exception the deficiency in scope and breadth which is the penalty for playing one part many times instead of many parts a few times. Those who refer to Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Irving, or Mr. Mansfield, who have played single characters almost innumerable times and thus discover a flaw in the argument, do not know perhaps that these actors played many scores of characters during their novitiate and thus gained technical skill which enables them to avoid the dangers of repetition into which their less talented and experienced co-laborers are sure to fall. If for no other reason than to drive home the conviction that they cannot afford to content themselves with the trivialities of a single comedy style, these revivals of "The Hunchback" and "The Lady of Lyons" should be valuable to the profession, while the public must gain broader views by looking away from the present and studying such useful lessons as are offered by the past. Probably a great many who saw these plays and marveled that fashions change so rapidly in plays as in gowns or social customs, were impressed by the belief that if Knowles and Bulwer Lytton wrote with too great literary flamboyance and became stilted, at times, in their desire for poetic oratory, the dramatist of the present day errs in the other direction. Literature as it was known to Addison, to Lamb, Hazlitt, Coleridge, Macaulay, Goldsmith, Sheridan, and a host of other masters, is rapidly becoming a lost art under the pressure of telegraphic brevity and a craze for uninspired condensation. Brevity may be accepted as the soul of wit, but sentiment and feeling cannot go quite unclothed of appropriate and finished expression without destroying the necessary aspect of appropriate art and beauty. Miss Allen's success in the many sided character of Julia indicated how well her talent and wide training in the legitimate combined in a role which was first given to the world by Fanny Kemble so long ago as 1832. Mr. Bellew also justified his invaluable experience and distinguishing temperament by a skilled representation of Claude Melnotte in "The Lady of Lyons." His was a mature Claude to be sure, lacking juvenile enthusiasm and spontaneity, but in technic was sure and impressive. Mary Mannering's Pauline was only engaging as the work of a pretty and popular woman. Never for a moment was she really inside the character. While they were not revivals in precisely the sense of the word as applied to "The Hunchback," "The Lady of Lyons" or "Francesca da Ramini," all of which had been absent from the stage for a considerable period, two other old plays were made to reinforce the season in an agreeable manner. One was "Divorcons," with which that admirable artist, Mrs. Fiske, again delighted her audiences, and the other, "As You Like It," in which Miss Crosman appeared to advantage as "Rosalind." Mme. Modjeska also brought out "King John," though this happening was so far away from the dramatic centers that it is impossible to chronicle the results, yet it is safe to assume that so fine an artist would not do anything ill. * * * On the legal side of dramatic affairs the celebrated case of the year-indeed of many years was the suit for infringement of copyright by Samuel E. Gross of Chicago, against Edmond Rostand of Paris. The contention was that Rostand incorporated in his "Cyrano de Bergerac" essential features MRS. LESLIE CARTER. (Photograph by Sarony.) of the "Merchant Prince of Cornville," which Mr. Gross claims to have written more than twenty years ago. Having thriftily copyrighted his play, which no manager in this country or Europe would consider seriously, Mr. Gross was in a position to make trouble when Richard Mansfield produced Cyrano. There being no possibility of reaching Rostand, suit was instituted against Mansfield for infringement of copyright and royalties. Mr. Gross sent a commission to Paris to take the testimony of Coquelin, Rostand and others and entered into a very elaborate prosecution of the case. But Rostand refused to take the matter seriously or defend the suit, and since it was a matter of no consequence to Mansfield who wrote the play, the case was left in a singular position with an innocent third party suspended between the devil and the deep sea. Of course Mr. Mansfield could not remain entirely passive as an adverse judgment might force him to pay a second time royalties which he had already paid to Rostand. Consequently he joined issue, at least in a perfunctory way, and the case dragged along in the United States Court, when the end came in a somewhat spectacular manner. The Master in Chancery reported his findings to Judge Kohlsaat, findings which were in a sense ex parte, since there was no formal defense, and on the stipulation that the suit for an accounting against Mansfield should be dismissed, it was agreed that no objection would be made to a decision on the basis of the master's report. This appears to be rather a hollow victory for Mr. Gross, being, as it were, a judgment by default, which is not at all conclusive in regard to the main facts, but having been reached by due process of law, the verdict carries a certain legal weight. There ADOLPH VON SONNENTHAL. The German actor who made a tour of the United States during the season. in so far as practical stage use is concerned. In establishing his case Mr. Gross made use of the deadly parallel with no little effect. Some of the resemblances. pointed out seem trivial and unworthy of notice, since they relate to matters which might seem to be the common property of all writers. But there are certain parallels that appear astonishing, to say the least, and serve to create a series of coincidences than which nothing is more difficult to explain away. In order to bring the matter home to Rostand, and to confirm a possibility of his having seen "The Merchant Prince of Cornville" before Cyrano was written, Mr. Gross recites that he provided Coquelin, the French actor and friend of Rostand, with a copy, and offers other testimony of a similar nature which evidently carried weight with the Master in Chancery and contributed to the final decision. It might not be fair or proper to suggest what seems to be the consensus of opinion in Chicago on this subject. There is an undeniable sense of wonder that a man who, in his youth, could imagine the situations in Cornville, should never again have written a line or disclosed any literary or dramatic ability. Some are inclined to carp and quibble at this point, to an extent which I will not attempt to describe, since there is no virtue in allegations for which no proof is offered. Suffice it to say, that the case is curious and extraordinary in all of its aspects and can scarcely find a parallel in dramatic history. are many who would have been glad to have regard this Cornville play as an absurdity, their musical collaborators are doing wonderfully well with these engaging trifles which have lost the odor of suggestive offense and gained of late in wit and musical consequence. Chicago has become quite conspicuous as a manufacturing and producing point of this sort of thing, having developed within a short time "The Burgomaster," "King Dodo," "The Explorers,' "The Storks," "The Sultan of Sulu," and "The Wizard of Oz," several of which have taken rank among the best of their kind. To this list might be added "The Liberty Belles," "Miss Simplicity,' "Princess Chic," "The Little Duchess," "The New Yorkers," "The Chaperones," "Hoity Toity," and a dozen other examples of a like nature, which with two or three excep T "San tions are American products. Toy," "Florodora" and "The Toreador" were made in England, and it is an interesting fact that Florodora, the most successful of all, earned success chiefly through one number, the double sextette or pretty maiden's song. It appears from the casual facts that the United States has become self-supporting in the matter of music-comedy, which provides some reason for encouragement. Presently we may be able to supply a greater number of high-class plays and thus meet the demand in another quarter. Our dramatists have already done very well. They possess the necessary talent for good work, but are usually in too much of a hurry. Their work consequently lacks finish. Evolution; The Mutation Theory. BY JOHN MERLE COULTER, Ph. D. Prof. of Botany, The University of Chicago. HE idea of the evolution of species is older than any scientific study of plants and animals. Many an atMany an attempt has been made to explain the methods of evolution, but that which produced the most profound impression upon biological thought and investigation was Darwin's attempt to explain the origin of species through natural selection, published more than forty years ago. The general and too often acrimonious discussion that followed the promulgation of this doctrine is now only remembered by the older generation, for the younger have been trained to accept it as a working hypothesis. Of course the only objections to it worth considering were those urged by biologists, for it had to stand or fall as it accorded with their investigations. Even among them there was a period when the idea of natural selection held full sway, and modern biological literature is permeated with it. Later there followed a period of doubt among biologists as to the sufficiency of natural selection to explain all the phenomena involved in the origin of species, and various supplementary ther progress in the last few years has been very slow because the theories of evolution have been made the subject of speculative discussion rather than of actual investigation. In 1901, however, there appeared a book entitled "Die Mutationstheorie," by Hugo DeVries of Amsterdam, and it has attracted large and interested attention. Its discussion is just now beginning to find a prominent place in scientific journals, and in modified form this discussion will certainly soon force its way into more popular notice. The great danger is that the "mutation theory," like its predecessor the "theory of natural selection," will be pressed by popular writers and speakers far beyond its original intent. Many see in this theory a new epoch in evolutionary theory; others are unwilling as yet to concede it even an important place. In any event, it is well for intelligent readers to know what it claims as to the origin of species. Darwin and Wallace's theory of natural selection was presented by using animals chiefly as illustrative material; hence it has |