When it is all over, and we
think of the Silvia of "La Gioconda," of the woman we divine under Magda
and under Paula Tanqueray, it is with a certain sense of waste; for even
Paula can be made to seem something which Fedora can never be made to
seem. In "Fedora" we have a sheer, undisguised piece of stagecraft,
without even the amount of psychological intention of Mr. Pinero, much
less of Sudermann. It is a detective story with horrors, and it is far
too positive and finished a thing to be transformed into something not
itself. Sardou is a hard taskmaster; he chains his slaves. Without
nobility or even coherence of conception, without inner life or even a
recognisable semblance of exterior life, the piece goes by clockwork;
you cannot make the hands go faster or slower, or bring its mid-day into
agreement with the sun. A great actress, who is also a great
intelligence, is seen accepting it, for its purpose, with contempt, as a
thing to exercise her technical skill upon. As a piece of technical
skill, Duse's acting in "Fedora" is as fine as anything she has done. It
completes our admiration of her genius, as it proves to us that she can
act to perfection a part in which the soul is left out of the question,
in which nothing happens according to nature, and in which life is
figured as a long attack of nerves, relieved by the occasional interval
of an uneasy sleep.
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