H. T. Parker's Review of Verein Play

The following review of "Alt Heidelberg," the Deutscher Verein play presented in Jordan Hall, Boston, last evening, was written by Mr. H. T. Parker, dramatic critic of the Boston Transcript:

The Deutscher Verein is marking its twenty-fifth anniversary by the performance of the most exacting play that it has yet undertaken in its ten years of theatrical experience. "Der Neffe als Onkel" and "Einer muss Heiraten," of previous years were only slender trifles and a little too suggestive of "required reading" in elementary German. "Der Herr Senator" and "Der Raub der Saberinnen" mounted higher in the theatrical scale and were freer from the hint of the class-room. Both, however, in difficulty of performance and in interest to a general audience, fell far below "Alt Heidelberg," the play that the society acted in Jordan Hall in Boston last night and will repeat in Brattle Hall on Thursday.

More nearly than any other German play, unless it is Sudermann's "Heimath," of our immediate time, "Alt Heidelberg" is a universal, almost a classic piece. Even mistrustful Paris has seen it gladly, while American audiences long since warmed to its sentiment and its humor. German it is at every turn; in its satire of the petty routine and stiff-backed etiquette of the modern Pumper-nickel that Meyer-Foerster calls Sachsen-Karlsburg; in its glimpses of the life of the students at Heidelberg; and, above all, in its two sentimentalists--the old tutor, Juettner, dreaming over the university to which he is to return, and the young prince, idealizing in the boyish delight of new freedom, all that he finds there. It is German, too, when it turns the old sentimentalist into the tipsy sharer in student routs and makes the young prince believe that Kaethie's practised smile signifies so much that is personal and intimate. Perhaps it is most German when it turns all the emotions of the young man, set by unkind circumstance over his principality, into a haunting "sehnsucht" that sends him back to Heidelberg--and to disillusion.

German as all this is, alike in outward aspect and inner spirit, in both speech and action, it is universally human, comprehensible, and touching, while the exotic setting, as it seems to us in American, of the Karlsberg court and the Heidelberg inn, only adds another tang to the pleasure of the whole. Thus, in a measure, is "Alt Heidelberg" proof against any sort of performance; but it needed relatively few of these defences in the representation that the members of the Deutscher Verein accomplished last night. They had, too, the aid of a part of the Pierian Sodality for a rather overdressed orchestra in the scenes in the tavern garden, and of a choir from the Boston Turn Verein to sing German songs, as sentimental as the play, between the acts. Moreover, if circumstances compelled the German ambassador to deny the performance the honor of his presence, a numerous audience applauded it heartily because it understood.

Four or five of the parts, like Mr. Layman's old tutor, Juettner, Mr. Perrin's waiter translated from inn to court, Mrs. Barnes-Hochberg's Kaethie of the tavern, and in a little less degree Mr. Schurig's mincing and mealy-mouthed chamberlain, were admirably taken. The players had sense of character, carried it to the audience, and acted generally with freedom alike from self-consciousness and what in some instances was an acquired speech. With Mr. Layman's Juettner, indeed, illusion never flagged and it was the true illusion of the old man's sentiment. Skillful, too, was the suggestion in Mrs. Barnes-Hochberg's Kaethie that for once the girl meant more and meant it more sincerely than she had with what must have been, unless the ways of Heidelberg inns have sadly changed, the twenty predecessors of Karl Heinrich. The other parts went with varying degrees of competence; the chorus of students scarcely needed to believe itself German; and if Mr. Barnes-Hochberg's prince lacked romantic illusion--a very difficult thing to attain and one that very few of the impersonators of Karl Heinrich have gained--the speeches and the episodes that the play gives him helps to bring it. Slowness of pace was the short-coming, almost inevitable with a foreign tongue that made momentary gaps and let the interest for the instant sag.