engagement at the Lyceum--characters, that is to say, making little call
upon the emotional faculties of their exponent--will not be disposed to
modify their opinion from her 'creation' of the new part of distinctly
higher scope in Mr. Gilbert's one act drama, 'Comedy and Tragedy,'
produced for the first time on Saturday night. Though passing in a single
scene, this piece furnishes a more crucial test of Miss Anderson's powers
than any of her previous assumptions in this country. Unfortunately it
also assigns limits to those powers which few actresses of the second or
even third rank need despair of attaining. Such a piece as this, it will
be seen, makes the highest demands upon an actress. Tenderly affectionate,
and true with her husband, when she arranges with him the plan upon which
so much depends: heartless and _insouciante_ in manner while she receives
her guests; affectedly gay and vivacious while her husband's fate is
trembling in the balance; deeply tragic in her anguish when her fortitude
has broken down; and finally overcome with joy as her husband is restored
to her arms; she has to pass and repass, without a pause, from one extreme
of her art to the other. There is probably no actress but Sarah Bernhardt
who could render all the various phases of this character as they should
be rendered. There is only one phase of it that comes fairly within Miss
Anderson's grasp. Of vivacity there is not a spark in her nature; a
heavy-footed impassiveness weighs upon all her efforts to be sprightly.
The refinement, the subtlety, the animation, the _ton_, of an actress of
the Comedie Francaise she does not so much as suggest. Womanly sympathy,
tenderness, and trust, those qualities which constitute a far deeper and
more abiding charm than statuesque beauty, are equally absent from an
impersonation which in its earlier phases is almost distressingly labored.
While the actress is entertaining her guests with improvised comedy,
moreover, no undercurrent of emotion, no suggestion of suppressed anxiety
is perceptible. It is not till this double _role_, which demands a degree
of _finesse_ evidently beyond Miss Anderson's range, is exchanged for the