The San Francisco call., 1899-08-29
FEW NOVELTIES
PRESENTED At
THE THEATERS
Clay Clement in His
Old Success.

Comparison of 1.-THE New Dominion
with "A Southern Gentleman sets one
thinking-and the thought hangs a por-
tent What direction did criticism of the
former take last year that Mr. Clement
should have selected the qualities least
admirable in it. and in the latter enlarge
upon them so as to bend and hinder his
work as a dramatist? I mean the tend
ency to wordiness, to long speeches and
the introduction of the vocabulary and
subject matter of verse. The speech about
the human flower is eXcellent-mOSt in
teresting, but it has no dramatic value.
and this sort of thing is pushed to the
limit in "A Southern Gentleman" II is
the stuff out of which one makes wooden
passionless plays. OVer-thought for pref
tiness induces nausea, and while a play
may get along perfectly without esthetic
quantities, tameneSS of action, lack or
honest appeal to human emotion, Will in
eNltably weaken il. Provided 1t be not
SreWSOme. considerable downright blunt
ugl1neSS is a good dramatic quaiity-it is
so human. If Mr.. Clement means to keep
on spreading this veneer so generously ne
VIII ultimately cover his strength and
present only the insipid-the colorless.
The South seems TO be the Mecca of all
who would write character plays and
catch that intangible something called
cause so elusiVe-elusiVe as the Zeit-GetSt-
The theme is over-handled, the subject
about threshed TO the limit, and yet Mr..
Clement has given us in The New Do
miniOn' a play of quiet, even interest,
subdued in situation, natural in key,
witty in dialogue, carrying its strength
not so much in its plot, which is not novel
0he "Old Homestead mortgage idea) ,
as in its well-drawn characters, CHIEF OF
which are Hohenstauffen and Marshall
Boner and Martha. Hohenstauffen is a
cross between a type and an eccentric,
but with a comfortable leaning toward
the former. He is a slightly exaggerated
composite of a large German class, but
done with as thorough KNOWLEDGE oil
values as a Nicholson portrait or PM
May sketch, and it would be a caviling
critic who would not tell Mr.. Clement
that he has cleverly drawn a most inter
esting character. and acted it to the life.
lect and the insight with which he ap-
preciateS his own idiOmatic breaks is
quite as humorous as the breaks them
selves. The substratum of the hard, un-
surface polish, is a bit of ballast that
moors the Baron Franz Victor securely
TO this earth. Otherwise one might
vaguely fancy that heaven was his only
unique species of brute. He is the old
story of the double inheritance-money
and an in1udicious palate in whtskies-
and is portrayed by Mr.. Jeffrey Williams
strength. He is to be congratulated on
his choice of CraVat-sO. potent thing
in revealing a mans breeding-it stamped
the Vulgarity of his character at once.
OF the others, save Miss O'Malley as
Martha and Mr. O'Malley as Napoleon.
the negro one would like to write a
colorless paragraph committing himself
TO nothing, for ones thoughts in regard
TO them are neutralized between satisfac-
tion and the opposite. They do not mar,
neither do they enhance the value of the
play. HOhenstauffen alone is well worth
spending an evening with.
CHARLOTTE THOMPSON.