File:Players and plays of the last quarter century; an historical summary of causes and a critical review of conditions as existing in the American theatre at the close of the nineteenth century (1903) (14767646922).jpg

Identifier: playersplaysofla02strauoft (find matches)
Title: Players and plays of the last quarter century; an historical summary of causes and a critical review of conditions as existing in the American theatre at the close of the nineteenth century
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Strang, Lewis Clinton, 1869-1935
Subjects: Theater -- History Theater -- United States Acting and actors
Publisher: Boston, L.C. Page
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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f the Reign of Terror, andmade him the central figure of his melodrama.To give the monster of iniquity a passingsemblance to humanity, the dramatist inventeda youthful love and a son. Robespierre wasintroduced at the moment when his career hadpassed its climax. He was seen with hisinfluence waning and his boundless ambitionstill ungratified. He was represented as vain,cowardly, madly wild in his social imaginings.We followed him through the hypocriticaltriumphs of his fete of the Supreme Being,and we were with him when he suffered thekeen pangs of unrequited parental affection,the fear of doomed death for his son, theterrors of the guilty conscience feeding onremorse, and finally the complete despair ofdisappointed hopes and vanished authority. Such was the Robespierre indicated bySardou and portrayed by Mr. Irving, thecharacter from which the play received itsname, and the only character in the playthat was to any degree whatsoever developed,the only presence that prevented the drama
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HENRY IRVING Henry Irving in Melodrama 287 from being merely a series of disconnectedepisodes. In this connection, it will be interesting tonote how few and how small a part of the eightscenes, which comprised the five acts of Robespierre, had anything to do with ad-vancing the plot. According to Sardousstory, nineteen years before the action began,Robespierre had had a liaison with Clarise deMalucon, who had borne him a son, Olivier.At the opening of the play, Clarise, unknownto Robespierre, is living in seclusion with herson and Marie Therese, her niece, in a cottagein the forest of Montmorency. By an unfor-tunate chance, she and her niece fall underRobespierres suspicion and are thrown intoprison. The son, crazy with grief and rage,publicly denounces the tyrant and is also im-prisoned. Robespierre, however, learns whothese, his latest victims, are, and releases Clariseand Marie; but through the machinations ofhis enemies he loses track of Olivier. Olivier,in the meanwhile, has been

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