PARIS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 300, 21 August 1875, Page 2

PARIS.

(from oub own cobbespondbnt.) June 12. Theatres. — Theatre-Erancais. La Grand Maman, comedy in four acts by E. Cadol. This author has conquered the reputation, though still young, of writing virtuous plays having healthy morals, and his reward is success among all correct people. It must not be understood that all his characters are models of virtue and reason; they bare their passions, their vices, and their singualarities; but the spectators bear with these without feelings of pain, and have not want to call for the intervention of the Commissary of Police. M. Cadol’s name on the bills is something reassuring for the mothers of families, and the titles of his works breathe a comforting honesty. The plot of Grand Mamma rests upon the false situation made for children whose parents are separated, and whose disunion produces a scandal. The theme is not new assuredly, but the author treats it so naturally and so truthfully, in scenes full of sincere emotion, as to command success. The two principal figures in the piece are a grandmother, and her grandson Armand; the former is a good old lady full of experience, but with whom the trials of life have not dried her heart; she is amiable under her white hair, full of good counsels, indulgence, and pardon, with a dash of witty malice; one of those dowagers, resembling wine, which is cured of its faults in growing old. Armand is her grandson, young, impetuous and tender, adoring his grandmother, and making her the confidante of his joys, his fears, and his hopes. These two characters, incapable to make a drama alone, presuppose an intermediary generation—represented by M. and Mme. deßriac, the parents of Armand, his mother being the daughter of his grandmamma. His parents are separated since twenty years, on no clearly defined grounds, save “ incompatibility of temper.” M. de Briac is a man of the world, whom his mother-in-law, capital testimony, pronounces she would have been able to convert to a “ delicious husband ;” but her daughter, through pride and jealousy, and the want of tact, intelligence, and toleration, has failed to make him all that she could desire. Armand is in love with Alice Castet, the daughter of a jqdge, and the only bar to their union is the scandal connected with the separation of his parents, and the pending trial to make that separation legal. Armand begs his grandmother to solicit the hand of Alice, but she states, that right only belongs to his parents. This scene is very effective, as also that between Armand and his mother, when the latter complains of her husband; the son’s position is very painful, placed between the father, he wishes to defend, and the mother he ought to respect. One evening at a ball, Armand overhears a fop speaking slightingly of his mother; he resents the insolence ; a meeting is arranged. His father is occupied with his lawyer relative to the approaching separation, when he learns about the duel; so he arrives on the ground, unaware to, and before his son, and avenges his own honor; the last scene represents the father, a wounded arm in a sling, his wife leaning on the other, demanding of the Castel family the hand of Alice, for Armand. In real life this substitute in a duel could not take place, and we fail to learn if the parents, though walking arm in arm, have been reconciled, and if Madam has conquered her intolerable pride, especially as she is quite ignorant of the duel. The grand defect of the play is, that after the second act, the role of the grandmother disappears, and is replaced by a vulgar conjugal dissension. M. Cadol possesses the power of deep observa-

tion, of creating emotion, and of writing dialogues full of wit and profound reflection; he sees many things, but cannot put any strongly in relief ; he never pursues an idea to its end, he allows it to turn as it were upon itself, thus it is lost in the vague. He abounds in commencements which are never terminated, and is full of good intentions which remain without effect. He is an amiable moralist rather than a powerful dramatist. The play, has, however, won an honorable success. The acting of Mme. Plessy, as the Grand Mamma, was very superior, it is a pleasure to listen to her clear articulation and sonorous diction ; the least syllable reaches the ear without effort. In the expression of passionate. and violent sentiments she is deficient, but is incomparable in all that goodness or coquetry demand. Lyrique Dramatique. Marie Jeanne, drama in fiva acts by M. Dennery. Thirty years ago, this, the best of the author’s pieces, was'first prefaced, and it was in the part of MarifßJbhne, that the celebrated Mme. Dorval achieved her greatest triumph. Alexandre Dumas remarked to her in reference to this rdle; “ never was wqman more applauded by the public than you ; “ I believe it well,” she replied, “ others put all their talent into it, but I put my life.” This is quite true, as she ruptured her lungs by her cries of despair, and which produced the malady that killed her. The plot is simple ; a poor “ woman of the people ” delays her marriage for some years till she has saved a certain sun), then she weds an Artizan, excellent in many ways, but easily led, and addicted to drink; poverty in due time arrives, and to save her only infant, she places it in the basket of the towerof the Foundling Hospital; she observes it is carried off by a rich stranger the moment after she deposited it; chance leads her to be hired as nurse in the family where her abstracted child has been taken to in the place of one deceased, she asserts the infant to be hers ; the conniving doctor states she is mad ; she is thrown into a lunatic asylum, ultimately escapes,. and finally after great difficulties recovers her infant. Maternal despair and agony are the passions developed in the drama; these are both pathetic and heart-rending ; the anguish of the mother as she deposits her offspring iu the hospital, is only on a par with her mental torture in being falsely incarcerated as a lunatic, and these feelings are depicted with a reality that cause both tears and shuddering. This long part has only one note, but what a powerful one. It is said the grand success of Mme. Dorval was owing to her having “ tears id her voicewhen she pronounced the words, “my child, my poor child,” the spectators could not refrain from weeping. Mme. Laurent, the popular and energetic tragedienne, who now acts Marie Jeanne, though eminently successful does not touch the feelings as did Mme. Dorval; she is full of sentiment, of talent, expresses grief powerfully, but she cannot change the compass of her voice, is unable, like so many other talented artistes to “put the tears into it.” The play or Cromwell, by the authors, Messrs. Sejour and Drack has had a veritable success ; the past tense must be employed, as the authorities have prohibited the second representation. No piece has been subjected to greater alterations by the Censors than the drama in question, largely founded on Victor Hugo’s work. All the hits against “ Royalty ” were expunged, and the few emasculated ones that remained, were cheered to the echo by the audience, in which some hisses were mixed. The rdle of Cromwell—which is all the piece, has been played with great effect by Taillade. The first tableaux, the scene in the third act, and the denouement, are the sensational attractions. Taillade repeated a phrase the Censors struck out, hence, the suppression of the piece. Cromwell was very much applauded when he said, he found England ruined by Royalty, and after the commonwealth revived her, the Royalists wished to seize her, net unlike France recently.