The times., 1899-08-13
IDEAS THAT ARE Wasted
Clever Situations Often Parts OF
Unsuccessful Plays.
Episodes Are Forgotten With Their
Settings and seldom Come Into Use
Asain-AdmirabIe. Dramatic Works
That Have Been Lafd Aside-The-
atricaI Comment of the Week.

During the last month or two the Offices
OF persons engaged in or remotely connect
ed with the theatrical business have been
Hooded by a great torrent of dramatic lit
erature-guide books, date books, refer
ence books, and like volumes Excepting
only the pamphleteer period of the French
Revolution, it is doubtful if any one year
during the last couple of centuries has
brought out so many publications treat
ing OF single subject Most of the issues
have certain value to those whom they
most concern, however, and even the lay
man is not infrequently enabled to secure
material for thought from their pages.
Thus did Julius Cahn's annual incline one
to statistics, and SO have various of its
successors been prompters of equally bene-
ticial frames of mind
In looking over all together the student
is struck with a number of suggested con-
ditions which.J though known to exist,
might not have come to his particular at
tention otherwise. Perhaps the most rat
ural of these conditions and, at the same
time, the oldest is limited at in the adyer-
tising pages of the works in question.
Here. among the lists of property printed
by all sorts of agents, one finds the names
of various plays which are recalled TO have
been good plays, and yet have been rele-
gated to the stock and popular-priced
houses by what may have been temporary
failure. His interest aroused in this man
ner, the critic is melted to go further,
and probably turns to the familiar and in
complete roster gotten out in 1896 by the
American Dramatists' Club. In that cata-
logue he is astonished at discovering the
titles OF some hundreds of pieces long ago
forgotten by the general public, and yet
each of which he remembers as having
contained sundry clever situations, or as
having been clever themselves. In half OF
these cases the offerings are those which
have been timidly tried and, not having
proven profitable at once, removed from
the boards; in the other half the designa-
tions refer to efforts which have been ten
dered during limited seasons in limited
territory and then dropped.
What becomes of the several powerful
climaxes, the bits of sparkling dialogue.
the amusing incidents and the tuneful mu-
sic in these dead productions is ques-
tion that it is difficult to answer A GER
tain famous mathematician once Inquired
that. every sixty years enough pins were
turned out to completely cover the
earth. and then asked pertinently where
one might find those for which the newly
manufactured were substitutes. So the re-
viewer, having taken up his task with en-
thusiasm, is not to be blamed for his in
ability to see the hiding places OF the
thousands of plots and situations constant
ly being Matched and then put out of sight.
Ideas used in books are set forth in cold
type and remain ever on view; ideas used
in plays cannot be Tecoilected two years
after their settings have been removed
from the stage.
And these ideas-ideas that have had
no opportunity of becoming threadbare-
should be numerous. Really notable pre-
sentations sometimes fail because done in
advance of the period at which they might
be appreciated or for other reasons. DIR.
Belgraff,' an undeniably remarkable work,
lost money for Wilton Lackaye mainly
because ii treated of hypnotism and hyp-
notism had been so burlesqued after the
vogue of "Tribly" that audiences could
not be brought to take the subject seri-
ously. Then there are dramatic properties
without the essentials for success, and yet
possessed of one or more valuable por-
tions Thomas O. Seabrooke's Papa Gou
Gou," impossible as it was then taken al
together, was filled with catchy
melodies, and ''The Speculator,"
which George Broadhurst wrote for the
same star, had al least one scene that de-
served TO become perennial. Young au-
thors frequently embody in their earlier
turn-outs episodes which pass for term
in the poorer class of theaters, but never
see the light of day-or night-elsewhere.
David Belasco's laughabie Under the Po-
lar STAR may be taken as an example OF
this. Lastly consider the pieces which
serve as material for celebrities during
one PARTLY profitable year and are then
laid aside-as The Fortune Teller threat
ems to be-without having outliyed their
usefulness.
Each of the instances named above is
like the conjectured thousands to which
allusion has been made in that each has
got itself into some dusty pigeonhole or
drawer and there lies useless. Richard
Mansfield has purchased Or Belgraff,
but seems in no hurry to test it; George
Broadhurst has been promising for a con-
siderable time to rehash The Specu a.
tor but has not yet done so. Both, even
though granted to be unfit for production
as they are, contain the much-sought-a after
idea-perhaps the one situation or episode
that, rendered null and void by its enyi-
ronment or construction, might make sue
cessful another play. Add to them W. H.
Cranes "A Fool of Fortune E. H. Soth-
ern's Change Alley" E. NJ. and Joseph
Hollands "A Superfiuous Husband,
George Broadhurst's The Last Chapter"
Digby Bells Joe Hufst-Gentlesl
Otis SINNERS Prince Rudolph "A
Mixed Mess about Town. The Able
Constantin," His Absent Boy" Admitted
to the Bar" THE Amazons," Ambition"
An American Beauty 'The American
Duchess "A Bad Lot" innocent as
Lamb" "A Barrel of Money" Breaking
a Butterfly" THE Cabinet Minister" :" The
Capitol" Captain Paul. The Case of
Rebellious Susan" The City of Pleas
ure," "A Divorce Colony" "a Fatted
Calf" His Little Dodge ''The Silence
of Dean Maitland" Squire Kate" For
Money" "Geoffrey Middleton" and scores
of others almost unfamiliar, but, in parts,
meritorious and one has several possible
fortunes that are lying in places less Sc
cure than national banks.
Luckily, not all good plays are either
forgotten or relegated TO the stock compa
nies. The average dramatic author POS
sesses a barrel quite as oapacious as was
that of the proyerbial minister, and from
this occasionally fishes material not too
much used for further exploitation. David
Belasco's THE Wife" and 'The Charity
Ba1V' contain scenes almost alike, as do
various other works turned out by identi-
cal writer's. Nor is this requisition con-
fined wholly to those individuals who own
the situations and dialogue in question.
Every few weeks the most casual OF OBJ
servers may note bits taken bodily from
one piece and placed in another by some
malefactor whose respect for the copyright
law is not overwhelming Thus "a Bach
elor's Honeymoon" might be readily traced
to His Absent Boy" "A Gay Old Boy"
and even to "A Parlor Match" while SINH
lar examples are not wanting Harry Cor
son Clarke declared to a Times man re-
Gently that an extended search through the
older publications in T. Henry French's
New York library had enabled him to To-