Photograph by White. Belasco’s Collection.

NANCE O’NEILL AS ODETTE DE MAIGNY AND JULIA DEAN (THE YOUNGER) AS CHRISTIANE DE MAIGNY, IN “THE LILY”

THE WIVES.

Fanny PerryJane Cowl.
Kate WheelerLouise Mackintosh.
Madge BoltAnne Sutherland.
Alice RandLouise Woods.
Annie StarkLou Ripley.
Lucy MeekGretta Vandell.
Helen HoytBlanche Yurka.
Julia WilsonHelen Braun.
Natalie BordenJulia Reinhardt.
Sadie RinglerJosie Morris Sullivan.
———
Paul BartonWilliam Morris.
Lulu WheelerJane Grey.
CarrieHelen Ferguson.

“Jane Cowl,” said Belasco, “had been with me for several years, understudying many parts in different plays, acting ‘bits,’ and working hard. I felt that she had earned her chance, and I gave it to her in ‘Matrimony.’ Her performance was splendid and she has been successful ever since.”

“The Lily” is a play in four acts, adapted by Belasco from a French original, “Le Lys,” by MM. Pierre Wolff and Gaston Leroux. It was produced for the first time, December 6, 1909, at the Belasco Theatre, Washington, and was first acted in New York, at the Stuyvesant, December 23. The story of this play is one of domestic tyranny, possible in France but impossible in America, and one which, accordingly, inspired only tepid interest in the American public,—although the treatment and presentation of it were in a high degree theatrically effective. This is the substance of that story: The Comte de Maigny, a profligate Frenchman who is also a father and a widower, tyrannizes over his children. The eldest of those children, Odette, is “the lily,”—a woman of thirty-five who, in girlhood, has been parted by her father from the man she wished to marry and who has become a mere domestic convenience, dwelling in lonely celibacy as her father’s housekeeper and lavishing her affection upon her sister, who is ten years younger. That sister, Christiane, is destined by their father for the same barren existence, but she meets a strolling artist, who wins her love and with whom, because he cannot wed her,—being already married to an uncongenial woman who will not divorce him,—she enters into an illicit relation. De Maigny has contrived to arrange a loveless marriage between his son and the young daughter of a man of great wealth,—being intent thus to obtain money for libidinous self-indulgence. The relation of Christiane and her artist becoming known to that person, he breaks off the marriage of his daughter with Christiane’s brother, not explicitly stating his reason but with ambiguous givings out which intimate it. The chief scenes of the play then follow. The infuriated licentiate badgers his unfortunate daughter, who, at first, lies to protect herself, until, at last, he elicits from her a rebellious, exultant declaration of the truth. Then, in the fury of his disappointed cupidity, he is about to beat her, when the long-suppressed, meek-seeming but actually passionate Odette, opening her valves under an immense and rising pressure of emotional steam, intervenes, denouncing the conventions of society in general and the iniquities of de Maigny in particular, certifying to the propriety of her sister’s conduct in the wretched circumstances existing, and declaring her purpose to protect that sister in her natural desire for “love and happiness.” Christiane then departs with her lover and the expectation of deferred matrimony, and her disgruntled parent, practically ejected from his home, goes off to Paris, whining that a waiter will probably close his eyes in death,—a pious kindness which the spectator hopes may be performed at an early date.

The play, of course, was devised for the sake of the sudden, blistering outburst by the elderly spinster—which in representation is undeniably effective—and, in the French original, for the sake of emitting some specious special pleading in extenuation and justification of illicit conduct. As to the doctrine which Odette declares in this play and which Christiane and her unhappily married swain exemplify,—the doctrine, namely, that when two persons who love each other are held asunder by cruel chance of social circumstance they are warranted in setting aside convention in order to come together,—its utter fallacy is too obvious for detection. Practical application of it, however, has often provided variously dramatic results: pathetic exposition of some of its possible consequences, to helpless, innocent persons, is made in Collins’ great novel of “No Name.” Belasco, in presenting his modified version of “Le Lys,” sought to evade the ethical issue, but he added one more to his long list of plays perfectly environed and admirably acted. Miss Nance O’Neil, who appeared in it as Odette, has been designated as a “tragic actress” (which she is not) and has been extravagantly extolled. She possesses rough natural ability, animal strength, vocal capacity, some sensibility and considerable power of forceful simulation. Most of her performances have been monotonous: in this one, in which, practically, she had only one scene and in which, furthermore, she had the advice and assistance of a consummate stage manager, she was interesting and impressive,—uttering the verbal explosion