The times., 1899-09-19
AT The THEATRES.
of the Gbetto.v


David m biahaon Z, .......--.-f Frank "orthlng
Meehiisedek Pislchss. William Norris
Moses Ansen Adolphe Lesiina
Simeon Wolf Claude Brooke
euedaly an @s.4.........------.G ~ Gus Ffankei
Mlehaei Blrnba gfH gfH.~...-...-......- Emil hoch
EpTraim Phillips Frank Cornell
sam LEVINE. s...s.. .... Fred Lotto
- SugaItian- IN Charles Stanley
ShesSin shinentsik- hiehard Carie
MIS- Jacobs .s,.............-... Louise Mudener
lalka .-..........-............A Ada Dwyer
aitiy fhiiitps Laura Ainoinlho
Leah Rosabel Morrison
MIS- Beicovltch. Madame Co trelly
Becky. .........Ada Ada Curry
Widow Ftnkelstein Sadie stringhaIn
fsthcr ailsell Mapei laislsIio
Hannah Jacobs. bs....................BlaD Blanche Bates
If there is a grain of verify in the
Oriental belief that the wholeminded al
ways see what they have wished and ex-
pected to see, Children of the Ghetto,
which was, in the jargon OF the theatrical,
given for the first time on any stage last
night at the National, is this morning
popular and universal success. Between
the faith which the lettered are said to
| have had in Israel Zangwill's remarkable
book and the credence with which the un-
lettered must have received the glowing
statements of his press agent, it is doubtful
! If in the entire audience OF yester-eyening
| there were a dozen men or women who
would have confessed to being skeptical
! as to the outcome of the Lieblers expert
ment. After the gathering was an
unusually brilliant and largely Jewish
one-had surveyed the white-and- gold
house in which it was assembled, had list
ened to the orchestral rendering of an ap-
J propriate selection, and had prepared to
feast it eyes on Mr.. Zangwill himself;
when everyone had settled back in his or
her seat to await the lifting of the cur
tain, all were reasonably sure that they
were to be allowed an opportunity of pass
! ing on another triumph of the "The Chris
tan" and "Zaza" sort.
| Notwithstanding the fact that, with the
| enthusiasm of premiere watchers and the
good nature of Pickwicks these people ap-
! plauded every important feature of the
/ production, it cannot honestly be main
I tanned that Children of the Ghetto" is
| likely TO prove the sensation anticipated
! either as a novelty or as a drama OF eir-
| ility and power. Not that the piece is
without novelty or without power, but that
! the two elements are as much opposed to
| each other are fire and water. Sen
sible Mr. zangwill has provided in Chill
! dren of the Ghetto" an offering radically
different from anything of the sort ever
seen before in Washington; egotistical
/ Mr.. Zangwill has forgotten that most of
! his material is new and strange and insists
upon preaching from theme to the Tn
doubted duilness Of which its net infre-
quent complexity contributes immeasur-
ably. All the stage craft that is said to
have been shown in his three successful
sketehes-"Six Persons" Three penny
Bits" and The Great Demonstration -
is hidden in this latest effort behind
mass of uniIhportant characters and unin-
| teresting data; data dry even though occa-
| sionally watered by the tears of the play S
few heartfhI personages. Briefly, Mr..
Zangwilf stands convicted by last nights
presentation not only of being a novice
! in things theatrical, but of being that most
intolerable of novices-the novice who
wishes to elevate the stage by placing
| library beneath it.
During the last four months newspaper
critics all over the country have been en-
gagged in the absorbing and harmless amuse-
ment OF deciding finally on what point of
/ the piece the success or failure of Children
of the Ghetto would hang Really, there
never promised to be more than two factors
in the ultimate fate of the play; one of
| these might have been applied to any drama
built on a past or present condition; the
other may be said often enough to con-
Germ any drama built on a merely meta
/
| Zangwill has gone astray.
The darkest Africa of bigotry and per-
secution in which the Jews have lived for
so many years, the darkest Africa walled
| always either with stone or with stocism
has been and is a great and all but uueX-
plored field for the writer. There are Won
| derful stories in the hearts OF the devoted
in any race that has been hunted and hui
inflated, that is clannishIy and blindly ar
| bitrary. These stories have never been
| brought out of the Hebrew tribes. The
| Semitic of literature often, and of the stage
| invariably, has been a comedian, a villain
or a mixture of both. Readers and theatre
| goers wot of a ShylociS, a Fagin, "Dicey'
Morris. and Samuel of Posen. They have
studied George Eliot and the German
| Leasing They may even have heard of Mar
/ loves Jew of Malta" of Nathan der
| Weise,' of 1.-The Shadchan," and of the
heroic Daniel Deronda," but, until Israel
ZangwiIl began turning out volumes filled
with atmosphere and set up in italics, the
real Jew and the forms and boundaries of
his religion were alike unknown. In put
ting these types, these forms, these bound
aries behind the footlights the author of
Children of the Ghetto" did not only di-
rect his paths over dangerous ground and
meet with difficulties in so doing. His in
yasion of this Africa" was made with in
finite opportunities and glorious possi-
bilities.
For these very reasons exceeding care
was necessary. People go to the playhouse
not for the purpose of thinking bat fer
the purpose of feeling. Hall Caine real
lied this, and "The Christian" was a sue
cess-James Herne did not understand it
and REV. Griffith Davenport was fail
ure Mr.. Zangwills chances all lay in
planting his newly discovered wilderness
with human stories and with human beings
| No one cared or was likely to care for the
wilderness itself. Dropping the meta
phor, Children of the Ghetto" could have
been a hit only with the Jew and his re-
lgion relegated TO the far background
buried beneath the writer's incidents and
situations as is a flower pot under the
ferns that grow from IT. And this is pre-
| cisely what Mr.. ZaEgwill has not done
| Instead, he has given to his play the frag-
ment of theme contained in the last few
pages of the first half of Children of the
Ghetto"-the novel. His romance does moi
crop out at all until the production is a
| third over and is then heard of only al
intervals during two acts filled with
| other things. 1t is the smallest portion oil
the pieca[absolutely subservient to dis
plays of Jewish rites, addresses to Jewish
| strikers hosts of Jewish characters not in
the last concerned with it, And this
! is all the more regrettable because the
| plot, when il does appear is a strong one
The climax of the dramas third scene is
marvellous. Hernesque affair-the at
mosphere maintained while the yarn is be-
ing unraveled in the last is Hernesque and
marvellous. This part Of Children OF the