Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1893-11-01
MORALITY OF wILDES NEW PLAY.

MORALITY OF WILDES NEW PLAY.
Oscar Wllde's play h3s made GER
tain kind of undercurient OF sensation
in Chicago; not very big one, out IT
has caused q small stir in this pious
fraud Of a city. say pious fraud ad-
visedlY, because Chicago, for some
mystic reason, enjoys the reputation
all over the wide world OF being shud-
deringly wicked, of fostering divorces
by the hundreds and sheitering social
canker and corruption in every form.
"Chicsgo not FASH" said friend OF
mine from Boston, where, by the by,
she has lot OF relatives whose heels
would look like specks in the distance
TO our plOdding villagers. ''If we have
reached the point where you can say
that you have indeed felt the democrat
ling influence of Chicago yourself"
but there isn't any demoralizlug indu-
ence here" sxpostulated. "The -four
hundred are half, or two-thirds, Pres
byterlans Of the strIctest Shbbatarian
rigidity; people who never flirt, would
not drive on Sunday, never touch card
aud can hardly be lured into theatre.
Social corruption is unknown. Gamb-
ling, drunkenness and vices Of which
the sheltered know nothing may be
rampant, but not more so In proportion
than in other big cities, and there
is q remarkably small amount Of
beggary." The visitor could not be
put of. There is never so much smoke
without little fire." she insisted.
chow could Chicago ever got such a
name without reason?" Well, l don't
know where Chicago got her name, but
she certainly does not deserve it, and
as for proverbs, they are usually non
sense at any rate they are frequently
misapplied. II there Is no smoke with
out fire, and have got so to dIstrust
proverbs that 1 won't say there can't
be, there can be a reputation for
rapidity without trace OF the gait.
There have been, perhaps. three
"causes of celebres" in Chicago within
the memory OF man, and New York
may eclipse that record easily.
But to return to Oscar. This place is
too moral to countenance his play. The
bold cynicisms he utters, sophistical
and clever, strike at the root OF Puri-
tan civilization. The monde does not
patronize the show. 1t Is afraid of il.
Those who do go know nothing and
care less about the wiles of duchesses
in marrying of their daughters and the
premature cynicisms Of gilded youths
of eighteen. The play is screaming
farce to them, with occasional touches Of
melodrama. They like the naughty ad-
ventures very much, and except in one
place, where the wooden lover begs the
somewhat ENJOYABLE lady to fly with
him, and she. without the falntest temp
tation, shrieks, mo 1 cannot got"
thereby bringing down the moral ap-
proval of the galleries, irrespective Of
acting or wOrding-wlth that exception,
| saY-the audience is more In sympa-
thy with the bad woman than the good.
But that is only because Of the acting.
AS for the play itself, 1t
is undeniably clever, sparkling
and highly satiricel-so preposterously
so as to be Glbertian almost all through.
Why do the critics take 1t so solemnly?
II overshoots the mark every time, with
its absolutely unreasonable and un-
reasoning shots. And the little boy
who fires most Of the shots is almost an
infant ia arms. And the good Lord
Windemere with his strictly deserving
wife, triumph in the end in almost nav
kish mutual making up. What is want
ed? As for the erring mother, she pre-
sents what TO all persons OF taste is a
spectacle OF blOHdned wig
gIness and enameed skin; is snuooed in
a way which appeals to all good society
Americans as worse than hanging, and
certainly suffers as much as she can,
and has nothing but the prospect Of I'M
lovely age before her. II this is not O
moral, show me one.