la Durieux, whose personality is forthright, whose methods
are natural. (Her Hedda Gabler is strong.) She dressed the character
after the approved Friedrichstrasse style. You must know that the
artistic Bohemienne wears her hair plastered at the sides of her head
a la Merode. The eyes are always "done up," the general expression
suggested, if the lady is dark, being that of Franz von Stuck's
picture, Sin. To look mysterious, sinister, exotic, ah! that appeals
to the stout, sentimental German beer heroes of the opera, theatre,
and studio. Fraeulein Durieux is entirely successful in her assumption
of a woman who is "emancipated," who has thrown off the "shackles" of
matrimony, who drinks beer in the morning, tea in the afternoon,
coffee at night, and smokes cigarettes all the time. It is a
pronounced type in Berlin. She talks art, philosophy, literature, and
she daubs or plays or models. She is the best portrait in the play,
though a thrice-familiar one. The poet showed this "misunderstood
woman" in one of his early works, Before Sunrise.

Hanna Elias stands the reproaches and berating of Evelin Schilling
until her patience fades. Then the two women, despite the warning of
the doctor that his patient must not be disturbed, as it might prove
fatal, go for each other like a pair of fishwives. It is exciting,
though hardly edifying. If you have ever seen two chickens, two hens,
fight over the possession of a shining slug in a barnyard, then you
will know what kind of a quarrel this is between the outraged wife, a
feeble creature, and the bold, strong-willed Hanna. And the disputed
booty is about as worthless as the slug. Gabriel appears. He is half
dead from the excitement. A plague on both the women, he cries, and
the scene closes with his whispered request to the doctor for poison
to end his life. You remember Oswald Alving and his cry: "The sun,
mother, give me the sun!" Act last shows the first scene, the beach,
and a figurehead from a brig which had stranded during a storm some
years before. This carved head and bust of a woman with streaming hair
serves as a symbol. Gabriel is attracted by the wooden image, as is
Lucie. The painter is fascinated by the tale of the shipwreck. He has
escaped the nurse and is out on the dunes watching the figure as it is
intermittently illuminated by the gleam of a revolving lighthouse
further up the coast. He is in an exalted mood. There is some comic
relief in the grave-digger manner be