Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-04-16
THE PLAY.

The piece which is on the boards at the
Salt Lake Theatre, is one of an already
overburdened class, and one of class
that is not of high order, and in which
there can never be the best of acting, for
the reason that such pieces do not furn-
ish any occnsion for it. The plot is some
what older than sin itself, and is of such
a nature that an adept at play-writing
should turn out about two week, with
an extra on Sunday. What is this plot
1t is this A young rake leads young
girl astray, and abandons her
to the world, and when she comes back
to the town from which she went, she
finds her lover and betrayer, and with a
few words of kindness he awakens her
old1ove for him and induces her to tell a
lie to the young woman whom he seeks
in marriage that he may get some few
hundred pounds. The lie accomplishes
the purpose for which it was told, and
the villain marries the virtuous girl and
the virtuous girl has baby which dies,
which must have been a good thing for
the baby, for the characters in the play
are not fit to have charge of baby.
In one particular this wonderful play,
the Wages of Sin, (or the Sin of Wages
as one young boy called it when asked
what this affecting piece was, nor is the
boy a communist or dynamiter either)
departs from the beaten track, and makes
the clergyman a man of honor and not a
disgrace to his cloth as is usual in such
pieces; and this is merit. The piece is
long, tedious and torturing; and to help
it in its more touching and tender parts
it has low, soft music such as the swan is
said to sing when she floats down to
death. 1t is very lame copy of the
Silver King, a play of none too much
merit itself.
The reason for the success OF such
pieces is that in the place Of the passions
of the heart having play in great actions
which arouse the soul of man and make
men seem for while almost gods, there
is introduced low appetite and common
intrigue, and they take that which is so
common in life as foundation that it is
branded as crime of so low an order
that it disgusts the mind and is
revolving to the feelings. In such
pieces the soul never plays
part, and there is nothing in them which
stirs thought and induces reflection. For
the quiet, all-absorbing passion which,
consumes the soul, we have loud ranting
and brutal murder The force of the
play should be in the thought and not in
the situations. For the development of
thought and the carrying of it into action
without sensational scenes and stage aux
iliaries the classic idea of the unities was
best suited, and the play founded on the
unities put to the supreme test the
power of the actors. The classic idea
was suited to single passion;
but only in the romantic school have
many and conflicting passions full play
and complete development. To the ro-
mantle school belonged Shakespeare,
Beaumont and Fletcher, Ford, Massi1-
ger and others, whose names shed Ius-
tire over the English stage. In France it
was otherwise; and Corneille, Racine
and Moliere were of the classic school.
but when in 1880 Victor Hugo introduced
the theories of the romantic school into
France, they were badly received, and for
many years were frowned down. But the
great writer's of either school knew that
it was in the deeper regions of the heart
that the elements of great drama lay,
and not in startling situations and COM
mon betrayals. Their productions were
art, while such productions as the Wages
Of Sin are artifice. They We're born of |
genius; such as these latter seem to have
been born of necessity and long labor.
Such plays can never bring back the
glory of the stage, nor produce such actors
rs Garrick and Macready, Booth and Irv-
ng and Salvini, nor such actresses as
Mrs. Siddons, Rachel, Bernhardt and
)thers.
1t is better to have no plays than poor
'lays.