A TRAGEDY IN FEATHERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9684, 7 January 1910, Page 3

A TRAGEDY IN FEATHERS.

Paris has been vastly em.e iued by the ludicrous attempts that hate -been made to stage (for rehearsal purposes) M. Koatar.d's long-pr< - mised play, "Chanteler," or "The Rooster's Elopemenr." This piece has for a couple of years been the theme of almost every writer on dramatic subjects in turn, and the curiosityof the public is being worked up to the highest pitch by the stories that leak out from the rehearsals. "Lhanteler" is a play in four acts. The first is set in a farmyard, where the cock (M. Guiiry) rules the roost, and lives in harmony with his hens until a wounded hen pheasant (ivime. Simone) takes refuge there, and ensnares the heart of the cock. The second act shows the elopement of the pair into the forest, and the third is a sylvan reception in the house of ' the hen pheasant. That is as far as the rehearsals have progressed.. The trouble has arisen from M. Rostand's insistence upon fidelity to nature. The little hens in the first act manage fairly well, but M. Gultry offers much resistance. To begin with, he has to talk without gesticulating, as his arms are hidden under his wings. Then M. Rostand tried hard to fix over his mouth and chin a beak to be worked with a string. Thh was too much for the actor, and M. Kostand will have to be satisfied with a beak that is a prolongation of the nose. And then M. Guitry has to fight the American cock (M. Aurelius Sydney), to use his spurs and to leap high into the air. M. Jean Coquelin plays the part of the dog, which is always following the cork. M. Coquelin declared that it was impossible for him to go on.all fours, and so a pair of doggy hind legs was then made for him out of cardboard, with his own legs to act as forelegs, but poor Jean bore no resemblance to a dog nor to any known animal, looking like a fantastic hybrid with a bull's body and a dog's head. The blackbird and the pigeon discovered almost insuperable difficulties in the way of their comporting themselves with bird-like sang froid. Mme. Simone is pleased enough with her part as the hen pheasant, but as her kissing scene with the mammoth rooster j consist merely in a rubbing of beaks, she may conceive some fatal objection to the process before the j play is presented to the. public. The piece, however, promises to be a great success, and long before the date fixed for the production first night stalls were being eagerly snapped up at £4 each, while one agency was said to have bought the whole front row of the balcony stalls for the first ninety nights at £2 a stall a night—which is quite unprecedented in the annals of any Paris j theatre. j