The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-11-29
AT THE THEATERs.

The Electrician is better melodrama
than its title gives promise of. There is
something in it besides a dynamo and a
switchboard. The, theater-going public is
beginning to look with suspicion upon these
dramatic combinations that make such ex-
travagant demands upon the mechanic and
electrician and contain so little of the art
OF play making. Consequently the audience
assembled at the Grand last night experienced
an agreeable disappointment. Not that they
heard any severely classic dialogue-for that
is not in Charles Il. Blaney's line-but they
did witness a melodrama that kept the play
ers busy doing something besides talking.
The Electrician in short, is a drama of
action rather than of words. OF course things
happen that were never known to occur out
side of a melodrama, but everybody is pre-
pared for this, as everybody expects and
wants to see virtue triumph, an achievement
that according to the Mikado Is confined to
theatrical performances only"
The first act of Mr.. Blaney's melodrama
does not arouse any great expectations. The
interesting characters do not appear, and the
action is conventional. The play develops in
the second act when the strongest personality
in the play, and. as it fortunately happens,
in the company. is presented. In the play he
is known as ''Bill Turner" foreman of the
Edison electric lighting plant. This role was
assumed by P. Aug. Anderson, an actor of
undeniable strength and distinction. Mr. An
derson's impersonation of the unfortunate
foreman, whose passion for strong drink en-
meshed him in the tolls of a scoundrel was
a striking exemplfcation of the possibilities
of the histrionie art. In no sense a great or
unusual characterized of a man whose good
impulses are drowned in the ''inordinate cup
Mr. Anderson's Bill Turner stood in the
very foreground last might as the one real
living, breathing character in the play. His
conduct of the scene between Turner and
his heartbroken wife, which is by all odds
the best piece II dialogue in the drama. de-
noted Enthusiastically the actors keen insight
into the character Of ohe man he was assum-
ing to be- Andohis execution was invariably
effective because never obtrusive nor exag-
gerated. nor, on the other hand. common
place or weak. Of
OF the other members of the cast, which it
might be said is. in no respect conspicuously
inadequate for this style of drama, j. H.
Bradbury can be commended for his charac-
terization of Judge Msrritt, of Cripple Creek
mot on the bendh.P Mr. Merritt might spare
a few of those lexpeaves that begin with a
big, big D.. as they lose force with too fire.
quent repetition Miss Helena Collier contrib
uted a fresh, wholesome, vigorous embodi-
ment of Nell" young girl with a big
loyal heart and good shooting eye. Miss
Florence Stone, in the role of the bankers
daughter was handicapped by the lines all
lotted her, as the heroines OF melodrama usu-
ally are. but she nevertheless succeeded in
creating a favorable impression
The story of The Electrician is told with
sufficient directness to keep the interest alive
until the inevitable denouement arrives and
the steel bracelets are expeditiously slipped on
to the wrists Of the villain.