The courier., 1901-11-30

plays. The next time Miss Walsh
plays in the west the advance sale
will be affected by the play she elects
to put on. Even actresses with the
taste, imagination and temperament of
Miss Walsh are not to be trusted to
select play.
The Hunt for Happiness. originally
called The Blue Rose. is from the
Italian. 1t is a sOrdid story of an aC-
tress married to an honest. wholesome
man, but missing excitement as a con-
viCt misses tobacco and midnight
prOwling. The husband loves her. but
she leads him a life, what with the
blues and Mysteries and she has one
or the other all the time. Her brother
is Il morphine fiend and she acquired
the habit easily, too easily for him To
blame himself as severely as he does.
for teaching it to her. The tempter is
a shabby. oily Dom Pedro something
who speaks a dago brOgue that does
not carry beyond the foOtlights. Great
dramatiStS never allow their hero or
of the audience. The heroine of The
Hunt for Happiness is hardly used.
Her first entry is accomplished while
she is in the thrOes of an hysterical
fit produced by a slight to her vanity.
DisapprOval is checked when Blanche
Walsh plays the part of Lea by her
beauty, voice and Silken liSSOm grace.
But she loses her influence steadily
from her first entry To her final suicide.
She is hateful to her little girl and
shows that she has no love for child
hood and no appreciation of its grace
and beauty. She is selfish and cold
bIOOded She is without affection for
her husband. She married him be
cause he rested her. Happiness
means to her the qualification of the
senses She has no resources within.
She does not care for literature or
music Nothing outside of herself ap-
peaIs to her. And after all is said she
does not reason. Her fate becomes
more and more a matter of indiffer-
ence to the audience until when she
finally kills herself after clipping with
a tramp Spaniard, there is not Il real
mOurner in the house.
Morality and decency aside, it is
question if it would not pay play
wrights to make their characters
trifle more moral so as to attract
somewhat more sympathy at the death
of the hero or heroine, as the case
may be- India is not the only country
where sympathy is bounded by the
inexorable law of caste. Wholesome
fathers and mothers and innocent
Young people have no maudlln sym
pathy for the inhabitants of the half
world. For all her ability, Miss Walsh
was only family applauded. She dld
not receive a curtain call and the
audience left the opera house with
clouded faces. AS soon as they got
home. most of the people brushed their
teeth while maligning fate when
tempted them into the society OF play
or folk who have not enough dlscrlm-
ination to select a play suited to
fastidious. provincial Anglo-SaxOn
audience. Plays like The Hunt Tor
Happiness justify the prejudice against
theatres.
That the audience, as a whole, dis
,nnroyed of Miss Walsh for selecting
such a play and overestimatlng our
taste for Frenchiness, was shown py
the ouietness of the lower part OF the
house. Throughout the evening she
got hardly a hand from outside the
gallery. and if it is not convenient we
do not care if she never comes back.
Her support, except Emmet Shackel-
ford the morphine eater. ana L. i"'o''
Gibbs. the Spanish cad, was less thah