The sun., 1900-11-04
WIEN THE CURTAIN FALLS,
yrSr me HEROES AND HERONES
uy iIvAS IEFI marry?
VIZ American Audience. Even Those or cult
ore, Lc,ri to Lite rla'' That End Lori'
,.nP-rot Ign Authors Not Compiled to
p.,.x Fiction 60 joyous Conclusions.

csr?-ror Ign Authors Not tompried TO
Brinx Fiction to Joyons Conclusions.
N.,,, ~. Wrench drama Of "Iaza' had been
,o,rn, hy Charles Frohman and he had de-
cldrJ urur Mrs Leslie Carter FOR the part
,i,v,I lg par.s hy Gabrielle ] . ana. nm Eng
ush trrrsla'l1n w5s placed IN the hands OF
nsv,a g.,..co to prepare for our stage Some
alteration. we're deemed eTpedicnt on Mrs.
iart.-'. account. Tho humorously amoros
,,ss.soa In wNlch Ie are, great cor T.
d,crr.. rad been happest were lowered for
a.. American actress. and those In which the
,oss!.ra'a demonstrations became emotional
,vor, r'ed because she had developed a BERN
hard. Kind Of tunultuous violence Those
rhang's adapted the roe TO Mrs Carter and
anahled her TO do well with II. They neither
harmed nor helped the play Itself But In
another particular the work Of Bertin and
simon was perverted In difference to Amer
team Preference Tho authors had taken their
heroine out Of the rirs of gross degradation,
put her on less foul grade Of d'generacy
through sincere love Of n polite paramour.
kept her there until she learned that the man
was pcrfdious, and then dropped her back
into the muck II that i what sincere
passion does for me-" they made the poor
creature conclude, I'm have no more of it
The end Of the play rs Paris admired IL was
q return by the woman to degenerate lie.
Tha, was logical But Relasco knew that
American audiences would rather have her
left On ~. level to which truc-hsartedn"ss
had raised her. and a prospect opened ot stu
further elevation from vice 10 virtue. So
IN a new last act Of literary and dramatic weak
ness. because il had none Of the Vr llty ~ the
original composition. but of moral strength.
oscause Il taught the lesson that DEPRIVED
wretch may save her soul by losing her heart,
81. Ia1I
drah as a we,-hrhaved artistic. The amend-
meut was not highly regarded by the authors.
hut II was unducstonably juddous under
al the circumstances.
A drama was sent out last season for per-
formance In several cities preparatory to a pro-
ducuon In New York. ltended In mimic misery
for Its principal characters and did not prosper
In reality. The author wrote a different ter
ulnaton In which felicity was the outcome.
One night after the curtain had fallen on the
penuitmate act tho audience was asked TO see
the two forms Of the concluding one First
the fearful upshot Of tie story vas given In
accordance with the ori 2inal version. Lastly the
cheerful ending was r., resented. The peopis
we're then requested 20 vote. They favored the
smiling climax almost unanimously. The play
was not good enough In other respects TO lie
saved by the terminal changes Moreover, the
she best, and so We need not accept that case as
anything like settlement OF tho question
whether our people OF culture. or even a m or
ny Of them, demand that the last line Of play
shall always he and they lived happily ever
after We surely know by many examples
and as recently as "EAiylon.- that death may
be an acceptable conclusion IN stage fiction.
But II must be very pathetic scene or else
highly author ta,lve In authorship II Il Il to ne
accepted in our theatres. Rostand kills of tho
Young Bonaparte at the Knickerb booker. with
Miss Adams's triumphant aid, and the people
sre satisfactorily sympathetlc But when
/ancwill turns three persons In to corpse- at
Nai.aCks. although they are embodied by Mrs
lie Moyno and two other competent artists. tho
matinee girls snicker out loud.
When American audiences view with sati,-
faction the dead bodies Of their heroes and
horpi 49, as the final curtain f1lls It is with tho
prov.ro hat the liberated souls are going 10
Heaven. What our theatrical public docs not
like Ia 10 sce the syTnpathciic characters q
play left to misery alive. even though there 1,
no other condition for the author to put them
into lo.ically. larger proportion Of Germans
and Frenchmen are not Of that way Of thnMug,
vet when Romeo and juliet" IA played In ter
many or France the lovers are sometime. saved
from death and leIt In fclicitous wediock
And when Schiler'- -Kabale und iebe l. given
In liddish for lsrae tie audiences In the Bov.rv
the poison taken by the sw eethearts Is not per-
mittCd to be fatal However the foreign man
aEeTs are not ayerse to taking the risks OF pro
duCns plays reasonably sad In climax. willie
those OF our country can hardly ever be induced
to. The latest piece by Sudermann, johann
nisfeuer.' separates tw o lovers by an obstacle
Of caste, and. instead Of finally bringing them
=.
and sends tho girl OF homeless. hopeless wand
erer Another recent Berlin play, HarteUeu's
'RosennontaE," makes its hero and heroine
commit suicide rather than endure the social
taboo which thei marriage would Justly sub
iect them 10. No New York manager would
take up those pieces in English. and no remu-
neratve New \ ork audiences would like them.
A minority of us would 10 pleased but the
majority would not
The noteworthy fact as to the current out
put of stage literature In this country ia that
mtshaps have begun to attend the wild rush for
fcissors-and-paste plays. A dramatizatio ion
Of James Lane Aliens The Choir invisible
was abandoned last night In Boston. where 1t
would have prospered II that we're posi- bic
snywhere and DR. $ Weir Mitchell's Tho
Adventures OF Francois Ia a fiasco TO be
dropped this week in the novelIst's own city
Of Philadelphia The acting version Of F.
Hopklnson smiths Caleb West" was rewritten
In a seeminsly vain effort to win In Chicago
the popular favor which 1t missed In New
York. Plays which The reviewers OF Cincn-
nat ST Louis and Chicago condemn as poor
stun have been made ont of r Marion Craw-
ford's In the Palace of the KIug" and Paul
Leicester Ford's Janice Meredith but the
attractivcness Of Viola Allen in ole and Mary
Nannering In the other seems to be saving
them from disaster With these early warnings
TO he careful In the selection cf books to be
scissored and pasted into PLAYS, our managers
are bound to be less indiScrlmlnatc. and TO use
their best discretion la transferring novels to
the stage In the case of The Choir Invisible"
9 psychological theme presented no possible
roirts for dramatic development. and II -
strange that any theatrical man of busincs,
invested dollar in IL. Henry Jewett the actor
WHO NEured in the venture. is worthIly am
bilious. and he is out with the declaration
thai he viii seek success for the piece in other
lands The lacking element In the book of
The Adventures Of Francois love affair.
was intcrpJited In tho play, but without avail.
as other interests remained dominant. yet III