Gabrielle Rejane (1856-1920)

"ZAZA"
By Birton and Simon.
Produced at the Lyric Theatre, New York.

M. Dumeny, M. Kelm, M. Renoir, M. Monti, M. Gorieux, M. Berthier, M. Bosman, M. Duc, M. Thamin, M. Dufroy, Mme. Rejane, Mlle. Suzanne Avril, Mlle. Jeannin-Kelm, Mlle. Clery, Mlle. Rose Lion, Mlle. Deylia, Mlle. Bernou, Mlle. Edmond, La Petite Baudry.

In Birton and Simon's original version of "Zaza," in which Rejane appeared last night at the Lyric, there were a few speeches of the last act which were lacking in the version in which David Belasco presented Mrs. Leslie Carter - and their presence made a vast difference for the better in both the veracity, and the essential morality of the whole, but aside from this, as far as one can say from a memory of some six years, the two versions were identical. The methods of the two actresses, however, were as far apart as the poles. With Mrs. Carter's underlined and obvious acting in memory, it was a minute or two before the eye could become accustomed, so to speak, to the optics of this finely modulated and artistically suggestive rendering.

But before the first curtain it was fairly evident, if it had not been before, why Rejane is reputed supreme in the portrayal of the naturalistic comedy and emotion essential to the piece. One must confess to utmost sympathy with the central idea of the play, in spite of the frank picturing of vulgar and immoral surroundings which pervades it. Granted, a woman - potentially a great artist in her way - of depraved ancestry and utterly demoralized environment, who is yet at heart sincere, what will be the result when she falls truly in love? Up from the sink of the life she springs from, and which is a part of her, will rise certain emotions, ugly and grotesque on the surface, yet all the more deeply touching to all frank and native human sympathies.

That they should end by reclaiming her to a conventially proper life, as Mr. Belasco's version made believe, is shocking alike to the sense of fact and to immutable moral truth. Once a cocotte, always a cocotte. But that they should create in the woman a new self-respect and raise her to her own highest plane is in accord both with fact and morality. This is the difference which was made last night by the restoration of a few lines in the fifth act.

A similar gain was evident throughout in Rejane's performance. It is possible that it lacked the breadth of appeal Mrs. Carter gave to the emotional crises. The French actress shed no real tears over Toto, and everywhere stopped well short of hysterics. But, by the same token, she saved the passages of sensual appeal from any suggestion of animality. The undressing scene in the first act, in which Zaza seduces Dufrene, she carried off with the air of infantile fun, full of Gallic salt, which saves so many a Parisian scene from the coarseness we Anglo-Saxons read into them. She played it in a spirit of comedy that can fairly be called pure. It was so throughout. The best dressed actress in Paris, it is said, Rejane evinced in every thread of her costume the crude taste of the cocotte. She illumined her conception of the character with an infinitude of deliciously grotesque light and shade. Her walk, none too graceful at best, because at times not a little like the stride of a dromedary. With a masque that grows fresh and young in smiling, and wan and old in agony, she wrenched every pulse of emotion out of the part. With a voice that can sing in caressing like the tones of a violin, she became at need as raucous as a peacock. All this detracted from the salience of theatric effect perhaps, yet infused into the whole a reality, an atmosphere of general comprehensibility that threw the inner meaning into the vision of every seeing eye. Laughter mingled with tears, as in all true comedy; pity with reprehension, as in all true drama. With her role in "La Parisienne," her Zaza ranks at the top of her achievement thus far.

The work of the company as a whole was of the highest order, and especially the Dufrene of Dumeny. Of the production it is enough to say that it was the shabbiest and crudest of the many monstrosities with which Rejane has afflicted a patient public.

New York Times - 22nd Noveber, 1904.