Nazimova, Now Playing in "Ghosts," Chats of Ibsen, Herself, and the Play

Madame Alla Nazimova is as much concerned with the progress of her acting as the young amateur. Learning that we had seen the performance of the night before as well as that night's, she asked us which one we considered, the better. We finally remarked, after a natural hesitation, on the tenseness which we had noticed even more that evening. (In fact, the air seemed to vibrate with the suppressed emotion.) Nazimova also considered the performance that night of Ibsen's "Ghosts" more polished, for as she explained, there had been a rehearsal, she assured us, was much more tiring than the performance itself.

No Violin

Recollecting her early passion for the violin, we asked if she still played much and then let our eyes stray around the room, half expecting to see a violin case sticking out somewhere. But Nazimova cut our musing short. "I haven't played for many years; I don't enjoy the playing of a woman. The tone is usually too weak. I love the virile stroking of a man's bow," and her eyes flashed.

The color of these eyes has never been determined by any interviewer, including the present one. And they are the most vivid clue to her personality. The quick change ability, the determination, the strength of purpose, combined with the genuine spirit of kindliness in the woman herself, is reflected in her eyes.

Nazimova's knowledge of Ibsen is very great. To her, his plays are of just as much force now as ever, "There is still a great deal of hypocrisy in the world," she said. "I do not lie, for it does me no good, but merely confuses me. I lied like all children, but when I got older, I saw the worthlessness of lying. People hide their thoughts today just as in "Ghosts" because of a sense of duty and false pride. Ibsen saw this miserable state and shocked people with his writings, but the mistakes of a half century ago are still being made.

"Ibsen's character portrayal forces his characters to walk a straight line from the beginning to the end of a play. All the action comes naturally from the characters personality." When we asked her opinion of Ibsen's women characters and ventured to say that they were not as well delineated as the men, she turned on us and asked our reasons for such a statement.

When this explanation was not readily forthcoming, she undertook the defense. "Regina in tonight's play would never have stayed in that gloomy house to take care of an invalid under any conditions. She was too full of the joy of life to allow herself to be cooped by with as invalid."

Strength and Truth

To illustrate strength of emotion and truth of characterization in Ibsen's plays, she told a performance of his "Enemy of the People" in Moscow, where the audience divided itself into two camps in the theatre.

In talking of Mark Twain, she said, "I met him at a party when I was a young girl--we just sat in a corner and talked. Have you read his "Mysterious Stranger?". Most people know the Mark Twain of "Tom Sawyer" or "Huckleberry Finn," but in this book is another Mark Twain, cruel, hard, and the greatest pessimist in the world.