Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/27

Rh which it by no means deserves in a nation without pronounced dramatic qualities. If many of the best literary men have devoted themselves to theatrical criticism, it is because in the guise of examination and analysis of the ideas put forward in the plays, they can say and suggest much which it would be impossible to advance without this opportunity or veil.

The theatre in Warsaw is on the decline at the present moment. It is directed by a courtier who is bitterly hated, and who rules it in a military fashion, without the least artistic insight. It has indeed one important comic actor, but otherwise no men of talent of the very first rank, and no contemporary school of dramatic authors who could place peculiarly national aims before the younger men who frequent it. The greater part of the répertoire consists of French plays, and the style of acting is essentially French. However, in Helen Marcello, the theatre in Warsaw has an actress who fascinates by her beauty and her glow of passion, and only a few years since it had two admirable actresses who would shine on any stage.

One, Madam Popiel-Svienska, whom I saw play at a performance for a charity in Pailleron's "L'Étincelle," was a roguish and delicately emotional ingenue; a chubby little figure, youthful in her movements, with a delicate face, which shone with goodness of heart, its shadows dimples and its sunbeams smiles. When this lady married an elderly man of high rank, he demanded (like the egoist in Musset's Bettine) that she should retire from the stage, and she complied with his humour, although the public in Warsaw even now constantly embraces every opportunity to protest against this determination. At the passage in "L'Étincelle" where she says something to this effect: "I must play comedy again," by a previous agreement among the spectators hundreds upon hundreds of bouquets were thrown upon the stage, so that the play was interrupted for several minutes.

The second and far greater actress Poland has produced, who now enjoys a world-wide reputation, since of late years she has played chiefly in English, in London