The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-02-11
ALAN R()ASIS QGA
"Sappho" Is a BabyIonian
Accumulation to Him.
ITS HERO A WILLIE-B0Y
Its Author a Ounce and Olga
a Very Silly Person.
ITS HERO A WILLIE-B0Y

New York, Feb. s.-Allan Dale roasts
Olga Nethersole in her play 'Sappho" il
the Journal, as follows: Olga Neither.
sole sat astride of he Great Moral Pur.
pose at WaIlacks Theatre last night
And what a great Moral Purpose it was
How necessary and how extremely desir-
able it is for our youngsters and our
youngsteresses to revel in the picture of
a vulgar, brazen, unsympathetic courte-
! san, brooking herself into the life of a
silly, misguided young degenerate! What
| luminous purpose is served by the ex-
plotting Of a woman's untrammelled de-
sire fastening itself around the best part
of a stripIng's hope. What a great moral
purpose it was-served up with the sauce
that goes with the degenerate goose of
today-stlken garish toilettes, pretty per-
fumes waited from the footlights, dark
mystic stage, and all the other access
cries Of degeneration. How pretty, and
what prolifically moral purpose!
Fancy the careless theatre oer of to-
day being torn by any very false sym
out to the young cad she is seducing,
''Oh, let me black your boots!' ooh, let
me kiss your shoes!' and similar cries
peculiar to perverted humanity. 1t is
this horrible self basement, this brutal
sort of sensual satisfaction arising from
self-1egradation that the beautiful Sap
pho offers as her most pathetic offering.
1t is this sexual psychopathy that is the
piece de resistance of Mr. Clyde Fitch's
'Sappho' as produced at Wallacks. 1t
is this false and noisonpe sentiment-the
result Of a fatgued nervous system-that
Miss NsthersOle gives to US as the saving
grace of a lost womani
large audience, apparently incapable
of understanding what they said applaud
ed vohemeptly as Miss Nethersole grow
elled in the dust at the feet of her youth
full but caduish lover They seemed to
think it vastly stimulating-this spectacle
of the harlot on the ground and to find
great comfort in these phrases:
LET me black your bootsr' etc.-phras-
es that medical students will tell you are
the result of the EXTREMIST and hopeless
est sexual ignogniny. But ''Sappho' fail
ed in its most important aspect. Not
tear was shed. 1t was a dry-eyed house.
The play was a simeon of illicit passion,
but it lacked every harmonizing infiu-
once.
You wept at the sight of poor Zaza-she
was bad enough, goodness knows, but she
touched you in vital spot. You saw in
Zaza the subjugation of the heart; you
beheId a redeeming and tense self-re-
straint But in "sappho," which makes
a bold bid to emulate ''Zaza"-a bold a
brassy and clumsy 1bid-there is no HUI
manity. From start to finish that harlot
is "unsympathetic." Although you would
not feel sorry for Jean Gaussin-he was
such cad, such poor, weak-nlinded i'd
lot such a contemplate, blathering sort
of an ass-yoll never for one moment felt
an ounce of real human interest in the
struggling, clutching, unchaste and stu
pid woman with whom his life was con- |
founded.
"Sappho is. after all, cold-blooded bid |
for the sensual approval of foolish peo- |
pie. 1t is not good play. 1t will not |
stand analysis. Looked at with cold and |
vivid eyes, you see it's awkwardness, and |
you realize that it is put together merely |
to cause a few spasms of disgust. Dau-
diets object is utterly defeated but Dau- |
det is dead, and he cannot defend him |
self. That is the misfortune of authors |
to die and be butchered after death
In "Sappho" the book Fanny 1egTand |
is old, common. passe She is the daught-
er of vicious old cab-driver Daudet |
has tried to show how this faded old har-
lot manages to weave her web around |
Jean Gaussin, so as to blind him COM
pletely to youth, beauty happiness, de-
cency. "Sappho" the book is a study.
"Sappho' the play is didiculous.
Miss Nethersole. being a star actress,
anxious for sympathy and some sort of
admiration. makes Fanny Legrand young
and as fascinating as possible. She gives
her the airs of a grand dame and at the
ball in the first act she might be milady
tonodiz. You are almost inclined to laugh
when she talks of backing his boots
She is vulgar and over-dressed. Fanny i
Legrand should have been clad with some
sort ofrespectabllity. Miss Nethersole IN
the first act. wears a burlesque gown,
that is not only in eXecrable taste, but is
utterly absurd. And later when she
comes to Jeans rooms, and offers TO cook
for him (as we'll as black his boots,) she
is such a gaudy, glittering, enamely. os-
tentatious person. that you wonder how
a woman with Miss Netnersole's common
sense can rig herself up in such fright
full garbs.
And the jealousy with the letters-all
dragged in for the sake Of reading a
series of nasty confessions-how imposs-
iblal In the hook Jaan 5is-,,S+a5 with |
the woman after he has lived with her
for q long time. seeks the excuse of read
ing her letters to further disgust himself
IN the play the letters are read before
the message has been started. Evidently
Mr. Clyde Fitch has misunderstood Dau-
diets novel from its. first 10 its last chap
ter. Such Jealousy would be quite IN
Ineligible 70 a sane mind. But, as
said before Il is dragged IN. to cater 20