The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-10-14
ADJUSTMENTS


grammatic wit; not little pathos; and a
proper, glimpse of impropriety-aN are
purveyed at the Metropolitan just now by
Amelia Bingham's special company in
Haddon Chambers play, "A Modern Mag
dalen." Not, of course, that Miss Bing-
ham herself is to be seen, because she
presents her own company" Miss Bing-
hams name and her full-length portrait
upon the billboards were presumed to
herald Miss Roselle Knott, who Is admir-
ably supported. 80 ~
! "a Modern Magdalen," as local posters
have asserted is "the most wildly (!) dis
cussed play Of the age" In so Kilkenny an
argument, perhaps, another voice is not
to be desired. But it Is tamely submitted
that Mr.. Chambers has only adapted a
superior melodrama. Accepted as such,
"A Modern Magdalen'' will please
throughout. For it has more than tho
usual merit of the turgid school. It's
dialogue is bright, sometimes brilliant; its
humor is not overstrained; Its emotional
opportunities are frequent; several of it's
characters are unfamiliar; it's sprightly
movement reveals the adroit craftsman.
But when set forth pretentiously the
play does not meet anticipation. Most
obvious then are the many stilted lines.
The heroine, for example, displays the
sentiments the conduct of good-hearted
passionate shop-girl, and her diction is
chief-there is another-utters his first
sentence, and you know him for an EAST
Lynee" william. The true lover says that
he would not be untrue "for 5000, 0O0, 0O0''
In the plot there is no surprise, no in
genuity. Almost the entire play-and it
is not a Hateful tragedy-can be predicted
when the opening act shows Katinka
Jenkins, pretty working girl without work,
but with stepmother, drunken father,
an invalid sister, a hardtoiling true friend,
and a gentleman admirer.' Katinka,
impatient of poverty, dearly loves rich
| rainment-and her sister. To get money
Katinka, manifestly, will sell herself, and
the true friend will rescue her at next to
the last moment. She Is sold, she Is res
| cued-and that is the play.
The object of it all is to impress the
tr1te lesson of Camille" that a vicious
life does not invariably destroy a noble
soul. But the proof, in this example, is
based on the improbable. 49,.
Katinka is a healthy, handsome, edu-
Gated girl living in Brooklyn five years
ago.. She despises her father, a former
hates her vulgar, mercenary stepmother.
But Katinka would like to secure duo
| medical aid for her ailing half sister,
Olivia. Katinka would also like better
clothes. AS she is Indifferent to her, pa
rents, and as moderate wages would per-
init her to help her sister, the pretty maid
is without just excuse for seeking life
she pretends to abhor. Yet she runs away
| to join the gentleman friend. Luxury for
herself, not love for another is the mo-
| tive. Nevertheless, the play thereafter
turns on her self sacrifice! 'e:"'
| Katinka's remittances to her father en-
| able him and his wife to live in comfort
and the invalid to recover her health.
The father pretends to earn the money
him
| sister, and is naturally willing to be
| taught that Katinka is both selfish and
dissolute. When, after year, the wan
| derer, clad in full scarlet livery, returns
for visit, the. little home girl properly
| hesitates to welcome SO evil an example.
But from that moment little sister Is pill
| loried for her vile ingratitude. The in
congruities are endless.
The old expedient Of a supper-room cup
| STAGE; doors opened from time to time,
arms, uplifted bottles, containing So-and-
arms uplifted bottles, containing So-and-
Sos champagne as the program gossips;
notes of the clinking class and the mirth-
| full ditty-the presumed picture, in fine,
ofSVice as good people love to look at it
within a Observation-Disclosures Katinka
spending her admirer,s money. One of
| her guests is John Strong, agent of a
Society.f for the Suppression of Vice. He
is scathingly exposed as hypocrite who
| ranLS ABOUT non existent virtues and who
INDUCES a morbid fondness for peeping at
the half-world. Both of these are nota-
BILE qualities Of Mr.. Chambers play
The outcome is correspondence un-
natural The lazy, pleasure-loving girl
saved from suicide, marries her true lover
and goes off to Cuba as an army nurse.
Miss Katinka, Miss Roselle Knott
great praise. If she might better express
anguish with more constraint, less
| vehemence, still she perfectly suggests in
manner and utterance the passionate
headstrong, kindly heroine
The drinking father, superficial
selfish stupidity optimistic, and vacuously
merry, is played by the sterling charac-
ter actor, w. j. Ferguson, with uncommon
f1exibiity and finish. But the Language
of the Brooklyn business man is wholly
British; he is merely Dickens revival.
| : An unexpected role, that; of "Unce'
Brinker, an uneducated sporty" grand
father of the most gentlemanly instincts
IS eXcellently portrayed by Daniel Jarrett
Genuine as the character is, it suffers
from self-labeling, like the legendary pic.
ture Of the horse.
In the arce-comedy part of Johr
Strong, the psuedo- Anthony .Comstock
appeared to advantage Victor de- Sike
) formerly in Minneapolis as a. member OF
the Criterion stock company
= H. B. Curry.
"AII on Account Of Eliza" at the Bliou
Some time somebody, somewhere viii
; dramatize the multiplication table or TIL
alphabet, and, if he be clever he will