The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-02-16
THE DRAMA IN NEW YORK.
Mr.. HapgoOd Discusses Some of the
Recent "Greatest T~riumphs."


Norman Hapgood writes in the February
Bookman Of the stage in New York as fol.
lows:
In the absence OF any inviting by-path
one might be expected to follow the high
way. Where there is no pleasure in self
indulgence why not make a marriage of
convenience with duty? A critic casting
MS eye backward over four weeks of drama
and discovering nothing about which it
is a satisfaction to converse might re-
nounce his own desires and talk about "Du
Barry, say, or other phenomena so con-
expatiate about them would be a prima
faeie proof of devotion to his task. "A
Gentleman of France" now at Wallacks,
might have furnished excuse for a sober
estimate of Stanley Weyman had not the
reviewer, who is presumably hired TO Cow
er' his subject. left the novel unread for
weeks on his desk, while he devoted his
time TO volumesh having no relation TO any
thing more practical than enjoyment and
the unootrusiVe instruction which may lie
furtve in any work of genius. The best
books which lie for generations on our
shelves, whether they be dramas, lyrics,
history or the dictionary, sometimes step
out TO shame by their enduring worth the
taWdry amusement which makes fortunes
daily for the playhouse and the publisher.
To draw from the present and
stability from the past, to avoid both frivol-
lily and pedantic isolation is an obviously
ideal combination of which one term is
much easier in America than the other.
we should live in our time and in our coun-
try; but when we read in most OF the New
York papers that 'Du Barry is a master
piece and Mrs. Leslie Carter a happy mix
ture or the strongest talents of Bernhardt
and the finest talents of Rejane, and when
we see the Criterion Theater packed night
ly by crowds which agree with the jour
nalists may we not justly De impelled TO
hang our heads, renounce our allegiance
and go away 10 live with the animals or
the pedants? 1t is too humiliating. 1t
shows our very glorious fatherland engaged
in an activity in which ii acquires mainly
ridicule. Then look at the lying that holds
the ear OF the popuiace and secures far
ing headings In the papers. What is too
preposterOus for either? Having rung the
changes on Bernhard in English as Romeo
and Maude Adams in French as Juliet until
his cerebral hemispheres wavered, Mr..
Frohman announces that he will found a
French theater in New York with Coquelin
as a member, and people listen and are
not disgusted. There is no reason why
they should laugh, because familiarity has
taken the joke out of such trickery, but
they might at least show a temperate
nausea.
l select Mr.. Frohman to modest because
he is the most potent and one of the
worst, and he seems to be degenerating
daily. | would now gladly give odds of ten
TO one that any play at his f%avorite theater.
however coldly received, would be adver-
used as 1.-The greatest of Empire trIumphs."
as The Wilderness" is, although Mr.. Es-
monds comedy has done only fairly thus
AaAf " llC0l4N dC Wei dS IL UlU Ill Xix
land. Alice of Old V~incennes'' is a posi-
tive failure, but it is advertised as IAN
enthusiastic success" and "a new American
triumph" darcy of the Guards is a
pretty little comedy, a relief from Janice
Meredith" Richard Carvel" and "Alice Of
Old ~Vincennes;'' historically true, orderly
and unaffected in structure, light in the
comedy passages, and, l believe, moder-
ately successful; but Mr.. Shipman, the au-
thor, a man of taste, has done nothing
rightly condemning him TO read New York
surrenders" and 'Miller'S great victory" in
the advertisements. All these announce
ments are Mr.. Frohman's, and we might
respectfully plead with him to do less to
bring our theatrical atmosphere into con-
tempt and ridicule. Next month, in talking
about Mrs. Patrick Campbell, there will
be an opportunity TO dwell for one article
on acting and dramas which are supported,
not by credulity and gross methods, but by
the artists instinct.
a discerning sense
OF decent and sublime. with quick
Disgust from things deformed.