29 JUNE 1929, Page 28

The Music of Applause

AT first' blush the "names of Sybil Thorndike and Yvette- Guilbert Seern to hal=e' little in coriniien; except that they are both artists to their very finger-tips, and that art for each of them has claimed ther,largeit share of their lives. This gives them kinship. Both of them in their fervour of moral and artistic effort have ever been .poasessed with a conscientious and continual striving after imprairement, which has carried the Englishwoman to the positiOn of being the first tragic actress on her country's stage, though her brother and bio- grapher avers that " deep down in that sincere heart of hers she knows she is a comic 7 ; and which has brought Xvette, the incomparable Yvette, to be—Yvette, . that glorious mixture of tragedy and comedy and of what- De Gemeourt: li4s called " the Parisianisin of the moment and theold Rabelaisianisins of Tanurge." Yet -how different were the- upbringing and early lot of each. kor the one, a sheltered though alwqs lively childhtiOd (detailed at some length in her biography) in an English Cathedral precinct ; for the French child, bitter paverty among:the filthy dark.: courts of Paris; when the purchase of twopennywarth of cheese meant a sore strain on an exchequer which was only replenished by five' francs after sixteen hours' work at anything--7-millinery,', beadwork, sewing-anything that .came to hand and was poorly paid. Yvette learnt early what life meant, and it was grim knowledge which gave her the sympathy and, insight that have helped to build. her fame as a disease.

Different, then, are the books about each. The sibylline book is a brother's work with all a *brother's frankness, but With the right appreciation of the actress's genius ; while for the reader is reserved a sort Of hail-fellow-well-met manner, as who should say, " Come along, old chap I Want to know about my sister ? I'll tell you all about her." And he does; in an intimate jolly way, which becomes at times perhaps a little too rollicking ; but it is all in a good cause and more-. over from first-hand knowledge, and his book will find many delighted readers. One likes the sister's frank letters about "the Casson man " ; " he's had rather the same bringing up as us—you know, all holy and Church and being able to laugh a it, because you know it too well to be solemn," and she is ikon telling " Darling Russ " that " I've seen a man I could Marry," and all the world knows the happy partnership of life and art that has been established between Mr. and Mrs.'

Lewis Casson. •

Yvette's Memoirs (well translated by Beatrice de Holthoir; herself a disease) are more human, stronger stuff, and, if for nothing else, the book would be well worth buying for its snag; ttificent series of portraits and of caricatured Yvettes—infal-' lible index of " public approbation, the Music of applause."' But apart from these there is ;the entertainment always, afforded by the self-reVelation of a frank dOwnright-eharactek frattilif-eflrattherished 'high ift-art;,-refflizind them to the full in her rendering of the songs 54 Old France. She calls them her second repertoire, but she will perhaps hold the memory longest by the first—the black glove period— with its folichon little songs, some of which, however; might nowadays almost be sung in a young ladies' seminary or at mothers' Meeting. A thorough Frenchwoman, Yvette has always taken care to mettre du beurre dans ses epinards, and not the least diverting of the many tickling stories, wherewith the book is generously studded, tell of the different means she took to achieve that end. But always the artist. Acclaimed as such by friends like Zola, Daudet, Catulle Mendes, Richepin, Marcel Prevost, and Pierre Loti ;_ but she did not wholly hit it off with Sarah Bernhardt; nor with many aspects of American life which. she flays with a biting scourge. In Mr. Bernard Shaw she- fotind a congenial spirit, for " I adore people who

find everYthing wrong." . -

Each of these ladies has, -in her own way, made acting history, and in' any 'historical account of the drama their names might be expected to appear. But in Professor Glenn Hughes' The Story of the Theatre (which contains most in- structive illustrations)* they neither of them do, and_yet the author (who writes from Seattle) can, on one page and a bit, find room: for over a hundred names of Americans who have left their mark on the American theatre within the past tvienty-five years. Eugene O'Neill we know and admire, but who are John D. Williams and Guthrie MeClintic ? Surely there is here some laek- of discriniinating proportion. But with certain deductions studenta of the theatre andits history Will Probably prOfit by a book which traces the development' of the dtania out of the music and dancing of primitive peoples, through mystery, morality and Story-play, 'dawn to modern drama and the talkies. PicifesiOr HfigheS takes an encouraging view of cinema-activity ; he believes that it helps the: legitimate drama by delivering it from the burden, of providing for the tastes of the millions who love superficial realism or violent action, comic or thrilling.