The herald., 1895-02-04
ADJUSTMENTS.

ADJUSTMENTS.
THE BURBANK. People went away from the
| Burbank last night disguised, mad, put
| out about something-because there wasn't
seats enough. Daileys company in Days
| play damned" the house-packed it to the
doors. and people who couldn't get seats went
away in long procession.
People who were fortunate, those who got
| inside the doors. stayed 20 laugh. There
! seems to be laugh for every square inch of
A Night Off 1t begins with laugh and ends
with a roar. In between it is pretty much all
| laugh.
There's plot to the piece. In fact there's a
dozen of them. It's all plot-that's what makes
| It so funny. You think you know just how it's
| going to end. Why yes, of course; told you
SO; hold on minute, here's acomplication; n
new complication-it doesn't end that way at
| all-how can it? It's as complicated as a
Waterbury watch and twice as apt to get out Of
order
The attention of Augustin DAILY is hereby
| called to just one little defect in the play;
| it runs the mother-in-law joke into the
! ground There's nothing left of the dear old
! joke the joke we all love so well, for future
use. Night OFF effectualy exhausts the
J mother-in-law joke.
Daiey's company gets all there is to get out
of Days play. The players seem have been
born for the parts There are no weak spots to
jar on sensitive nerves; no stars to cast
shadow on minor parts but it all flows on like
as evenly as a river.
Dailoy's company plays A Night OFF all. the
week at the Burbank, and next week appears
in Barley Campbelps romantic drama, The
Galley Slave. Manager Cooper has billed the
Daley company for q four weeks engagement
and the fact will be pleasing 10 plsygoers.
Los ANGELES THEATER Hermann, the Gag
lostro of this century will play a short en-
gaGement, commencing on the 18th His
manager states that his feats will include the
illusions and marvels entitled The Artists
Dream, Noahs Ark. The Columbian Trans
formation and The Asiatic Trunk Mystery.
None OF these have ever been seen in this city
before. Nine Hermann will also appear in
beautiful and elaborate spectacular dance Gre
atoms.
Stephen Fiske, the premier dramatic critic OF
the country, has contribut I'd the most direct,
sensible and refreshing ideas on Trilby, of all
the mass that has been published on the book.
In the last number of his paper, The Spirit of
tho lines, he writes as follows:
Trilby. which went up like rockev, has
book received with such avidity, and never
before did cook die so quickly. month ago
everything was Trilby;, New editions were is.
sued every day; the illustrated copies sold at
$40 ltse hot cakes; illustrated copies at $50
were ordered from Bloomingdale's TO Bren-
tano's; the Trilby sketches we're on exhibit
ton; Constant Mayer painted a picture OF
1rilby from his inner consciousness, his
fellow countryman evolved the camel; every
body gave holiday presents OF Trilby to every
body else and Manager Palmer heated the
Atlantic cable 1edhnt with offers to have
Irlby dramatized Now that the dramatiza-
lion is reported to be completed, the sensation
is all over. Nobody who has ever read Trilby
will ever read it again or recommend anybody
else TO read it, The plain fact is that Trilby is
equally silly and indecent.
How, then, did such book create such
sensation? BY the adroit use OF the. noble art
OF advertising.
The reading world was told that Trilby was
awfully personal; that Whistler would bling
libel suit for zoo, 900, fight duel with Du
Maurier; that the story was so spicy that whole
pages had to be cut out so that the Harper's
Magazine clientee would not be shocked; that
these forbidden pages would be printed in the
book; that it was terrbe-and yet the Cassels
OF America would publish it! There was the
excitement of personality and of wickedness
yelled by an assumption of Christian limo
cence. 1t was like the Beecher trial, or like
the first Pa khurst orgie Every body wanted
to know all about it,
Unfortunately the indecency of the book is
not yelled in any way. There is nothing mas
tier in literature than Trilby's written confess
sion: "Barater and Besson; but not Durien,
though people think so. Nobody else, swear,
except old Monsieur Penque at the beginning
who was mammals friendp'
The moral of Trilby-if it have any--is: Ev-
cry mother should allow her good son to marry
a corrupt woman, if the woman have fine feet
Another moral is for musicians only and
what do they think ofit? 1t is: Take a bad
no musical intelligence, butwith fine feet, and
by simply mesmerizing her you will produce
miraculous singer-greater than Patti, than
Alboni than Grisi, than Jenny Lind, than
Melfbran-contralto, tenor, soprano and basso
all combined-and the whole world will fight
for seats to hear her sing nursery rhymes, like
mesmerize her she will break down and can
not sing even Ben Bolt"
The writing of Tri by is on a par with its
morals Du Maurier has long been ridiculous
for his disproportoned figures in Punch-the
women l feet tall, the men 15-and, mental
obloquy being added to physical his literary
work is equally disproportionate. Worse; ii is
without form and void. Snatches of broken
English and broken French, mostly not orig
Little Billee; "reminiscences OF student days in
Paris, done often before and always better
done; scraps of La Vie de Boheme; pages
padded with other peoples verses, introdu ced
upon some such idiotic pretext as this: II
cannot resist the temptation of setting them
down here as though pao asd at eemPoed
natic had been given pencil and paper and left
to amuse himself. Too much OF it consists Of
familiar quotations written in "as though
had just composed them myself, Never be-
fore in the history of letters was there such
furore of folly over such utter rubbish.
made out OF Trilby, there are, only three dra-
matte scenes in the book, and none OF these
can be put on the stage They
First-When Little Billee is shocked at seeing
Trilby doing the altogether" This has been
tried and failed in the Clemencesu Case.
Second-When Trilby sings nursery rhymes
so wonderfully as to eclipse all operate
singers There is no such singing possible.
Third-When Svengali withdraws his mes
meric power and allows Trilby to break down.
The private box and stage effect has been tried
and failed in Edmund Kean
But any play without 1.-The altogether and
the mesmeric singing cannot be accepted O
dramatizaton OF Trilhy. Q. E. d.
All that the dramatizer of by can do is to
take the names OF the characters and write a
play around them, just as he took SAeridan's
characters for his socaled play of sheridan,
and as he took Tom Taylors characters Tor
The Pacific Mail. But it is no more necessary
to pay Du Maurier for the privilege OF doing
this than it was to pay the heirs of Sheridan
and Tom Taylor.
Reduced to its scenario. Trilby is only Ca
mile over again, with little Billie as Armand,
Svangalia De Varvillc and Billie's mother
instead of Father Duval. This is the original
from which Du Maurier took all the story
there is in Trilby and wrote it out just as
though had composed it myself" But ii a
playwright tries this game, he will be con-
fronted with the real Camille, which is bill
lion times better.
Our advice to Manager Palmer is not to
throw good money after bad. II the Trilby
play is in any respect like the Trilby book the
proper place for 1t isthe fire. not the stage. II,
as we suspect, it is not at all like the book,
why give il n bad name by calling it Trilby?