Iconoclasts

85

s Vikings, a few days before it was withdrawn, in May, 1903. For one thing the production was doomed at the start: it was wofully miscast. The most daring imagination cannot picture Ellen Terry as the

lights, sending shafts of luminosity from above, Mr. Craig secures unexpected and bizarre effects. It need be hardly added that these same effects are suitable only for plays into which the element of romance and of the fantastic largely enter. We see no "flies," no shaky unconvincing side scenes, no foolish flocculent borders, no staring back-cloths. The impression created i

ar from promising. A fire burns in a peculiar hearth in the centre, and there are raised places for the women. Outside it is dark. The stage manager contrived to get an extraordinary atmosphere of gloomy radiance in this barbaric apartment. He sent his light shivering from on high, and Miss Terry's Valkyr dress was a gorgeous blue when she stood in t

ed with the darkness and obtained several

or lyric outbursts; the dialogue glows with passion, but the glow never becomes flame or gives out sparks; here are caustic wit and biting repartee, but the fighting is not carried on with light rapiers; we

" of the V?lsung Saga into mere Norwegian and Icelandic Vikings of the age of Erik Blod?x-or B

re again the woman is the wielder of the power, and not the man. Hj?rdis is the very incarnation of violence, of the lust of conquest,

of his race and made of them an organic work full of the old spirit, heroic, powerful, and informed with the harsh romance of the

st. Upon the purple spotted rocks near the home of Gunnar Headman on the island of Helgeland-in the north of Norway-Sigurd comes up from his two war-ships which lie down in the misty cove. In the person of

rd. Then hostilities cease. In the young woman Oernulf recognizes a daughter wed without his consent by Sigurd; for this hero, after giving up Hj?rdis-the foster daughter of Oernulf-to Gunnar, marries Oernulf's real child, Dagny. As already indicated, this scene was managed with remarkable deftness at the Imperial. That sterling actor, Holman Clark, no stranger in America

ched peasant has killed a subject of the Queen. She is revengeful. He pleads for his life and is promised protection. Hj?rdis soon appears. She looks like the tradit

Kara, in the interim, has gone away muttering his vengeance; Hj?rdis, dissimulating, invites all to a great feast in Gunnar's house and departs. Sigurd would go. Dagny mistrusts. At last Sigurd tells his too-long-kept secret. It was he that slew the white bear and won the woman beloved of Gunnar. Dagny is amazed, and after being conjured by her husband t

ould she bemoan her fate with such a house, a fair and goodly abode? Hj?rdis turns fiercely upon her and replies, "Cage an eagle and it will bite at the wires, be they of iron or of gold." But has she not a little son, Egil? Better no son at all for a mother who is a wan

ed for his deed, a mighty deed as yet not excelled by Sigurd. The listener seems on the point of denying this Hj?rdis notes her agitation and presses her, but Dagny is faithful to her word; she keeps Sigurd's secret. Then in a burst, almost lyric, Hj?rdis confesses her love for combat to t

Hj?rdis weaves her spell of disaster. She sets boasting the warriors, forces the hapless Gunnar to describe how he slew the great white bear, and openly proclaims him a better man than Sigurd. Even this breach of hospitality does not embitter the friends. Thorolf, however, is hot, imprudent, and at a chance word from Hj?rdis is set on fire. Miss Terry, it must be confessed, played this entire scene with great dexterity. Her broken phrases,-f

n of the child, must be told the terrible news. Thorolf is the apple of his eye, the last of his race. Broken-hearted Gunnar explains. Outraged at the deed caused by Hj?rdis, the timid Dagny gives her the lie when Gunnar's feat is again nauseatingly dwelt upon. "It is Sigurd who won the woman; look at the ring on my arm!" Amazed, infuriated, Hj?rdis turns upon her husband. Is it true? Gunnar confesse

of G?tterd?mmerung. Both Wagner and Ibsen f

. It belongs essentially to Hj?rdis. In the free daylight we discover her weaving a bowstring. Near her, on a table, lie a bow and some arrows. The one soliloquy of the piece begins the act. It i

his barbaric music Ibsen relapses into pure Shakespeare. We see Lady Macbeth and her epileptic husband merge int

y, Brynhild to Gunther and Hagen; but this same Hj?rd

baleful words. The next interview is with Dagny. No trouble now in winging this emotional bird. Already she repents of her cruelty the previous night and would make amends. Hj?rdis recognizes the malleability of the woman and pierces her armour by proving to her her own unfitness for the high position as wife of Sigurd-now the sole hero. She plays all the music there is hidden within this string, and it sounds its feeble, little, discouraged tune without further ado. Dagny feels her worthlessness, has always felt it; better let Sigurd go unattended, unhampered, and quite alone upo

rime. It must be expiated, as was John Gabriel Borkman's. Curious it is to note the persistency through a hal

that this affection was returned. Hj?rdis bids him renounce all for her; together they will win the throne of Harfager-the ultimate dream of Sigurd. Sadly he bends his back to her gibes, to her dev

row she has made expressly for the purpose. A strand of her hair is entwisted in the bowstring. Sigurd, dying, tells her to her horror that he is not a pagan, that even in death he will not meet her "over there," for he is a Christian man; the white God is his; King Ethelstan of England taught him to know the new religion.

," whispers Dagny to herself with true Ibsenesque irony. Gunnar says aside, "She has slain him-the night before the combat; then she loved me after all." These sly, pitiless strokes would have proved too much to a British audience, suffic