Download File

CHARLES FECHTER
Glavis, there was a remarkable display of
this power in Mr. Fechter, when he made
three commonplace words, "Away with
you ! " fall upon his tormentors like a bolt
from a thundercloud. Mr. Booth played
Ruy Bias and Claude Melnotte rather
often in his early life, and briefly returned
to them a few years before his death.
His performance of neither part — though
his playing did not lack distinction, of
course — was worthy to be ranked with
Fechter's. Booth's Ruy Bias seemed dry
and slow in comparison with the French ac-
tor's, and Booth's Claude Melnotte, which
resembled a double dahlia, was insignifi-
cant beside an impersonation that had the
splendor and fragrance of an Oriental rose.
Fechter was essentially a player of melo-
drama, however, — a master of the ex-
terior symbolism of the histrionic art, but
fully qualified neither to search into the
spiritual and intellectual depths of the
greatest dramatic conceptions, nor to carry
[ 125 ]