Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-03-13

bpou The Struggle of Lif
puquesne Thoater... The Cad
Alvin Theater.-. .-.-....................Mi Miss Heyet
Grand Opera House. use.............. Paul Kauya
Nllnams' Academy. Rose Hill Compan'
JaEls Museuin-iheater- ter--.-.-......---.C Curiositie
m"rlu museun .Curiositie
HarTls er-.....-...............,T The Ivy Lea
The above are the theatrical attraction.
for this week.
The most interesting event of the pas
week WAS undoubtedly the performance O
judah at the DuQuesne Theater. The
play Is by Henry Arthur JONES' with Whose
works we are fairly familiar He seems te
be the best dramatist in many ways that
England has produced of late, and by al
odds the cleverest in matters of construction
and stage craft. His silver King "The
Middleman," "The Dancing Cir" and lastly
Judah" have all deserved success in q
greater or less degree, because they were
Dullt Tor acting with ingenuity. So many
plays fail of success because their authors
wrote IN the study and for reading public
rather than in the theater and for a theat-
Ilcal audience. Mr.. Jones never goes above
his public's head; always caters to the facul-
ties and likes of the multitude, and is con-
stantly believer in action. action, action!
Judah" has the merits of Mr.. Jones' work
IN marked degree The story of the play
begins clearly, continues Interestingly and
proceeds TO a climax and then surprises the
ar6lsd. audience with the finale; This is clever
w.
The idea of the play, however you may dis
like or disapprove of it, is entirely new Mr..
Jones alleges "Jndah" is didactic: but L
think the lesson 1t teaches, if any there be-
is not at all what Mr.. Jones would have us
believe it is. L would not call "Judah,
cidactic, though it might be called
preachy" III places.
Perhaps better review OF the story of
''Judah" may interest some who could not
see it on the single evening Tasyaf Deti,ick
is the daughter of a retired sleight of hand
performerand has, besides beauty, a cheaply
won reputation for curing sick people by
faith or some other intangible medicament
The mercenary father compels Vdshti to
practise faith cure for their support and she
is successful beyond her expecta-
tiOns. The play opens with VdShtis un-
dertaking to cure nobleman's daughter
who has q hereditary disposition
toward consumption. Vdshti, for no very
apparent reason, always fasts 2l days before
etfecting cure, and she agrees to reside on
this occasion at the noble Earls castle, and
submit to close supervisors by a certain
skeptical savant, Prot. Jopp, during her fast.
Lle1cciigg1, a Welsh Presbyterian preacher of
immense eloquence as q revivalist, loves
l'GShS, and is beloved by her. The fast
begins, JIdshti being lodged in a tower by
herself The second act brings us to the
eighteenth day or thereabouts of the fast
For some days PROF. Jo120 has succeeded in
cutting OF all supplies from, Vashtt
previously furnished by her father, and
the girl is in danger of starving to death.
Old DefhTicE comes to hersrescue with a du-
plicate key of the tower, by which he means
to render access TO the prison easy at times
when the JopllS are not at hand. Judah hears
DetlIylcE telling TdSiti of the plan for her sue
cor, and for the first time the young clergy
man realizes that the girl he loves is a
fraud, a vulgar charlatan sailing under false
colors. He confronts her when her father
goes, Upbraids her, and then when she is
threatened with discovery by the approach
ing JopDS helps her to return to the tower
in safety. PRO-. Jopp thinks he has
caught TGSlai, but Judah appears and
swears that he has watched Fusiti since
lie has not aided her TO defeat her custodians.
The perjury is human enough, let me re-
mark by the way, and 1 have heard many
women say that they approve a mans living
to save the reputation of the girl he loved,
but it de estroys ,JlIi0hS character as a divine
OF real purity and elevated soul. Judah
poses too much as man OF tender conscience
and high spirit to consistently show such
signs of Weakness as his passionate pursuit
OF TdShti, hls climbing OF castle keeps, and
as climax hard lying to keep himself as
much as her out of disgraceful scrape.
Well, year elapses between acts IL and
III. and We find TdShn about to be married
to Judah, whose conscience troubles him
eadfully. The consumptive daughter of
the Earl has so far recovered that the latter
Is about to build church and endow it for
Judah, in fulf1lment of promise made to
TdShti before she began her fast. Then
Prot. JoDp appears with the proofs, which he
has been a year collecting, of the fraudulent
nature of TdSitTS fasting and curative
powers. He proposes to expose the Detricks
and prosecute them, but the Earl begs him
TO desist for the consumptive patients sake,
and the professor consents. But Jopp thinks
ii his duty to tell Judah what he has learned
OF FdShi. The clergyman takes the revela-
ton coldly, but he has in the meanwhile ex-
h Dited his conscience to VdSlfi. and when
the formal deeds of the memorial church
are about to be signed in the presence of all
the people interested, he leads Vnsiti for
temptible crime. Judah with a sanity air
OF Self-sacrifice, announces that though he
shall resign his benefice, Vdsiiti and he will
marry and live down the scandal in its very
birthplace. The ending of the play is sup
posed to be ma de happier by the union of an
female, the daughter of Jopp, with
an equally unsympathetlc monstrosity in
trousers.
The fault OF the play the big glaring and
offensive fault, lies in the motive. The skill
OF Mr.. Jones as a dramatist conceals this
motive to a great extent and while the play
is being acted we lose sight of the fact that
we are being asked to sympathiZe with .
Young woman who under very small pres
sure consents to act as a ''capper" for her
fathers confidence game. for a clergyman
who soils his cloth by misdeeds that would |
not be creditable to wild college |
hoy, while We are 1OrceQ to nope that |
fraud will prevail and that its opponents,
acting on really lofty motives, will be de- |
lcated The moral Mr.. Jones, ! believe, con- |
tends that the play teaches is that faith |
cure is another name for humbug, but the /
moral to be fairly deduced is that nan |
W no Gedicates himself to Gods service can |
allow his passions to have full swing, can |
lie for and conspiIe with woman en- |
gagged in the meanest kind of fraud, that |
which wears the garb of religion, and yet be |
a happy and respectable person when he is |
found out. This is not true, though it is in |
Efr gs'e Jones, 'H and UDV bV the ~ very clever y
acting OF Mr.. willard and Miss \
Burroughs Though / don't know that the /
drama should teach morality directly, |
think it is poor art as well as dangerous doc /
5rine to set forth life as it is not, to dwarf |
the consequences of crime, and excite the |
OF the audience by subtle special
pleading Tor the wrong as against the right 1
which is what Mr.. Jones does in Judah"
He did the same thing in "The Dancing |
Iirl," only more grossly aud without pro-
iding such an artistic and forceful vehicle |
Is he has done with Judah"
Mr.. Willard has no part in it to compare
With Cyrus BlenkGrn in "The Mlddleman,"
1ut he plays the inconsistent Judah with re-
intelligence and power. Miss |
is growing into great actress,
nd her TdShtt is the best thing she has done
-et. She made that impossible compound of /
ueanness and large-souled womanliness. of /
shrinking purity and mercenary audacity,
lmCst seem natural, and at certain point
bsoutely persuaded the audience of their
eIlity of her physical weakness, SO that
hey watched her stumble and
ESTATE upon the steps leading to
rshtis prison with bated breath and
remble lest she should fall. In almost
very respect the performance was highly
rtisric, and the company may be set down
: one of the best seen here this season. Mr.. |
yler was much more at home in the char.
cter of an eccentric and over-educated
5ritoa than he was as comic workman in
The Middleman."