The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-01-26
G r II

well as women. EuI III uOWll SeHcldliy
that women don't. as a rule, go direct
to the point They work up side issues
and fail to emphasize the heart of the
matter. / have seen women's plays
afterward put forward with success in
which the writer's consumed fifty or
sixty pages in talk before one got
glimpse of the central characters. Some
one had to slash them literally before
they were in shape. But there is Mrs.
Madeline Lucette Ryley. She is GER
tainly an exception TO the rule. She Is
direct and ingenious enough-and there
ere others, no doubt
UP in the rear recesses of Days
Theater, where the late Augustin was
wont to hide himself in mahogany
magnificence among his costly books,
is found Daniel Frohman, alert, intel
lectual, long, and thin, with free ges-
lures of hand and arm. He beams at
you through his glasses and, leaning
back in his managerial chair. fairly
invites question. So he recalls to one
that small eager boy at the head of
his Sunday school class who, when the
visitor asked him, who made you?
answered with catapult suddenness,
God; ask me something harder" Not
boyish in appearance, mark you, but
of unwithering freshness of spirit and
sheer zest of saying as well as doing
things.
Yet, even he took on a stumped. a
positively bashful air. when l asked
him to tell me something of his expert
ence with women dramatists. 1t was
necessary to soothe and encourage him,
and say (for he is veteran bacnelor)
that it was with the qualities of their
literary and constructive work we had
to deal. Still, he approached the mat
k.v- oh v.sl I'D rnrn OF rf 4
was with a bouquet of pretty speeches
of how much woman was doing in the
world of the stage. He named names.
There were Mr.. So-and-so and Mrs.
So and-so: look at what they had
achieved and so on.
But that was not what we were after.
We want to know what the ladies,
bless them, are achieving. Wherein do
they differ from men dramatists? Their
peculiarities. if they show any?
Learn the Business Slowly.
Most women who write for the
stage he said, learn the real bust
ness of the dramatist very slowly. 1t
either comes more quickly to men or
else men try to learn the business
somewhat before they write plays.
only speak, of course, from what has
come before me in the shape of man
uscripts.
"In dialogue women are prone to let
their intellectual and sentimental i'm
pulses run away with them. After stat
ing the essential-even after stating
it well and fully-they run on with the
thought as if each speech were an es-
say. They want to put moral into
every half minute, and, when their
minds are not particularly logical it
is often not a moral-strictly speak
ing.
LAS to character drawing? Oh, they
Indicate types fairly enough. You see,
just as types OF women come ready
made to the hands of men, the woman
has only to consult her old stock of
printed plays, her novels, or her OBJ
servation, to get types of men.
LAS to realizing the types well, that
depends on how far they go from their
actual experience. 1t is when they
want to make their men real man.
nish' that they fall into their funniest
errors. They cannot make them strut
and sWagger enough. And swear?
They use more swear words and white
damn oftener than any dozen men
except, perhaps, Augustus Thomas"
Mr.. Frohman laughed heartily at the
recolllections.
1.-THE necessary lack of all-around
experience that must mark the gentle
woman leads them into funny lapses
of phrase. ] mean they can often see
only one meaning to a phrase to which
an audience will instantly attach an
other. 1t may be that it is a para
phrase of a slang expression, or 1t may
be a suggestion of something queer or
peculiar, and, of course, comic"
Mr.. Frohman laughed heartily again.
"Will l share the laugh with you?
Certainly. Once a respected woman
who had frequently written for the
stage had a young girl addressing her
girl friend in scene laid in Paris.
The young girl was telling how a GER
tain designing woman had confessed
certain thing to the girls father when
they were supping together one sum-
mer night in a New York restaurant.
Said the girl friend:
How was 1t, may I ask, that this
woman found herself supping on a
summers night with your father?'
1.-The answer, marked earnestly
was:
Father is a New York business
man, an
But the line never went a word
further; 1t was drowned at that point
every night in a universal shout of
laughter. Mrs. - could never under
stand it.
Then they have strange reservations
about their stage characters. In one
play in which two ladies 'collaborated
the william had to be killed at the
end of the third act Now, ladies have
no squeamishness about killing people.
Williams particularly; quite the other
way. / had consented to this partic-
ular slaughter, but In rehearsing 1t I
found that the stabbing was done by a
third rate character. while the hero
stood by doing nothing, although his
record as a killer in the earlier scenes
was really remarkable and the machi-
nations of the william had been wholly
directed against him and his beloved
one.
1T won't do" said, Mr.. - must
kill him.
"'Mr. ---T said the mild little lady,
starting up. oh. no, no: not Mr.. -
Why not? He has been killing
people since the curtain went up
"Only think. said she. with clasped
hands, he has to ask the heroine to
marry him at the opening Of the fourth
act. How can we have him do that. his
hands red with the blood OF this rascal2
She was In great trouble and turned 10
the other lady. Help me, Mrs. ---.'
" i see the force Of what Mr.. Froh-
man suggests, replied the other lady.
but I agree entirely with you, my dear.
and as 10 the blOOdetained hands,
would suggest that Mr.. - XIII him By
taking him up bodily and throwing him
over a clin'
you viii meet with much Of that
sort Of thing" continued Mr. Frohman.
"a sudden reference % STANDARDS Of
conduct wholly foreign 10 the case On