The San Francisco call., 1897-10-10

Among the things that might have been
IS a great Bret Harte play of the name of
Sue" There is a "Sue' being acted now
al the Columbia Theater which Just
misses being that great play. and l am
inclined to think that 7. Edgar Penn ber-
ton, who coilaborated with the brains,
plot and dialect OF Bret Harte in the
making of the piece, is largely responsible
for the miss. E4gar Penn berton is known
in England as the foremost critic of
Birmingham, q first-rate theatrical feuille-
tonist and the author of several small
stage successes. There can be no doubt he
was given q share in the authorship be-
cause Bret Harte, purely literary crafts
man, could not depend upon his own
facilities as dramatist; and :he play
needs only the sure hand OF such 4 man as
Augustus Thomas to make OF it COM
plete masterpiece, it is not unfair that Mr..
Pemberton should stand for what is lack
ing Sue IN its present shape is too
good for out-and-out meIodrama and not
good enough for the sort of play it starts
= put to be.
II it had been written down to the plane
of com monplace meIodrama, where the
deed speaks and the word and psycho o .ogy
count for nothing then | shou say it
would have been better play abont ten
times Over than Mr. Belasco's paipitating
Heart OF Mary land But instead of
that, the intention IS play OF emotions,
the center figure of which is a young, in
nocent country girl, shut out from the
world, debarred from life, color, romance
and all the things which she in stin ctively
feels but never knows until a bespangled
circus star comes along, assails her sy n
pathy and fancy with almost brute force
and carries her away from the poor devil
of q husband who has neither understood
her nor been competent 10 stir her dorm
ant fancy. OF course the circus man is
only an episode. Sue returns 10 her hus-
band. presumably innocent. The piece
stops here, for their tragedy must last as
long as their hungry, aching lives
-.
This theme is not beneath Ibsen in his
younger day of cynical roma1tIeism, and
the treatment while popular in some
degree, is still artistic and human in
scheme, but faulty in execution. Sue"
is essentially a play for the sensitive
cultured playgoer, who has seen some
thing of men and women, OF books
and of the stage, ana who knows their
separate value. and would laugh at tre-
cracker melodrama. And when a play
SOSl Vi ANio 0Oib - S4-PbSi ~ '-O No'thr
originality and Ii1eikeness OF this play
and grows TO ieel that it has become
personal affair between him and The
stage, then naturally he resents every
awkward emphasis, every moment OF dis
enchantment that exposes the machinery
1 Of The drama and robs him OF his illusion.
] =. 9
U The only approach 10 perfect act in
"Sue" is the second; that is over an hour
in length and might mfortably lose fl
teen minutes. Fifteen minutes is long
time on the stage. You can totter thrones,
! wreck dynasties and order supper while
the Sheriff in "Sue" straps up his broken
leg and makes a speech about following
him 10 the DEATH The first act is over
loaded with banal stage parson who has
at least dozen entrances in the one act.
In which he tells you serially the story of
ms daughters ruin by the spangled