ENTERTAINMENTS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2614, 23 September 1909, Page 4

ENTERTAINMENTS

MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE

While England has had, and lias, her poets, and even the great British public has in its heart an appreciation of the truly poetic, there remains a national reserve of manner —a shyness, perhaps, that stifles in the average Briton verbal expression of the more delicate symphonies of imagination that ir.av thrill his'apparently unemotional soul. So it is in the mouth of a Frenchman that the American poet and playwright. Booth Tarkmgton, puts file best of the charming phrases and fancies that abound in his exquisite romance, “Monsieur Beaucaire.” Coming from an English stage character to an English audience—and in ) those matters the New Zealander and Englishman have the same lines of thought—the lavish poesy that falls from the Lips of Bea-ucaire would at times be dangerously near the bathetic. But spoken with a French accent they seem as natural as the witty retorts that give such a sparkle to the play. Booth Tarkington, in fact, can at times almost be compared to the late Oscar Wilde in the brilliance of his dialogue and the poetic beauty of his smiles. “Thank God, I was not born in France!” says a boorish Islander in the Bath pump-room. “Will Monsieur convey him mv' thanks also,” replies Beaucaire. When trying to broach the subject of his passion to Lady Mary Carlisle, he speaks of a land he loves. “France-'” thinks the lady. “No, «ays the poet, “it is a land of gold and snow. The gold is the gold of your hair; the whiteness of the snow is as the whiteness of your breasts; and the blueness of the sky aoove is the blue cf vour eyes.” But the English ladv does not respond to the poetic touch, and “Ah! she dees not understand me.” sighs the lover. He is an ideal courtier, too, this gallant Frenchman. When in the hour of trial Lady Mary asks pardon for nutting such a shameful question as that which would make Beaucaire seein a villain —"I can pardon everything in the world,” he murmurs “but that you shoulo. cry shame on anything you condescend to ask me.”. He has been set upon and wounded; the woman he loves has turned from him. but she screams at the sight of blood on the white linen. And the poet, covering the stain, plucks from his shirt a flower she bad given him. and shows it in explanation of the natch of red. “It is only a rose —n red rose.” When the author published the romance in book form, he departed from the conventional idea of a man having found one great love and desiring her arid her only, no matter what hoppened, and the masquerading Due D’Orionns did not marry Lady Mary. She had failed to stand the test —as many J a woman would fail—when everything bad pointed to the man being a lowborn imposter, and when his real rank was revealed he made no renewal of bis suit. There was a true woman in France, to avoid a forced marriage n ith whom he had fled from the kingdom of his royal cousin. A true woman was a treasure not t-o be despised —to her 1m went. But the public bnve a conservative, regard for the oldfashioned ending in which the hero marries the heroine, so. as in Kipling's “Light That Failed,” the story of “'Monsieur Beaucaire” has been altered accordingly for stage purposes. The play formed a fitting finale to the successful and all too brief visit of the Knight and Dav company to His Majetsy’s Theatre. Gisborne. The title role overshadows all others, and of this Julius Knight gave an entertn in in it and sympathetic interpretation. Miss Beatrice Day acted with feeling and finish in the part of Lady Mary Carlisle, and though Heavier characters suit her better she was seen to great, advantage in the more emotional scenes. In fact, in the moment when she responded to her lover’s pleadings by the statue of Dana —“the other goddess”—in the gardens. Beaucaire. for the first time, was almost overshadowed in the eyes of the audience. In an ingenue part, Miss Guildford Quin, as was to be expected, was well cast, and the rest of the company admirablv snriKU-ted the two leading players. Picturesque dressing and pleasing incidental music completed the success of the production.