The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-09-17

Mrs. Parker, 1 have felt more to-
night than at any other time in
great many years. l don't know why
it is but there is something about your
work that goes straight to the heart"
/ For the moment, excited by the occa-
sion, was gratified beyond reason. In
the quiet of my own room. however. I
began wondering whether what my
esteemed friend had said could not be
applied to any woman drama fist There
are not many of these in the United
States or abroad, but it is significantly
true that few who have had plays pro-
duced have failed.
The exclamation came to me as /
sermonized with the words of the
newspaper man as my text:
Women are more emotional than
men. They write more from the heart
and less from the brain. The conse-
quence is that, perhaps without quite
understanding the cause themselves.
I they draw tears and provoke laughter
with material from which masculine
author could get neither.
Any person who has conpared the
plays of women with those of men
must understand the difference l am
trying to describe. 1t is very marked
between THE Henrietta, which came
from the pen of Bronson Howard and
"a Fool of Fortune" which was the
work of Martha Morton Mr.. Howard
drew a splendid, vivid, dramatic pic
ture of events in Wall street which all
but illuminated in the ruin of his chief
character. Mrs Morton's handiworlx
was less vivid. more like a pastel: bur
/ the ruined Spectator who was the CEN
\ trail figure or the canvas claimed ones
sympathy and affection in "a Fool of
fortune as he never did in 1.-The Hen
rietta-.
/ Mr. Howard had thought about his
creation; Mrs. Morton had felt with
hers.
/ lean remember onlya few of the PLAYS
/ written by women in which there is not
at least one character that reaches the
well-spring of human sympathy.
beatrice carew, the veriest sketch in
Madeline Lucette Ryley's AN Amerf-
can Citizen, vets ones eyes. There
were similar characters in Marguerite
Merrington's Captain Letterblair,"
and in Alice Ives The Village Post
MASTER
Instinctively, intuitively, women get
at the hearts of theater-goers.
1t is true, too, I think that women
playwrights have more subtlety than
men. AS the jingle has it, 1T is their
nature to-
The difference is to be observed be-
tween any two pieces written by a man
and woman. A man playwright would
have given Beatrice Carew scene
with the man she loved in AN Ameri- |
can Citizen that would have left her /
crushed and the audience more or less
convinced
| Mrs Ryley spoke through a half |
dozen glances. a few lines spoken at
odd times. a long sigh uttered before
her final exit
of course it goes without saying that |
authors of my sex can draw charac terS |
of the feminine persuasion inimitably |
well In the mirror of their own emo |
tions they find the emotions of other !
women, and the other women divine |
and appreciate the fact.
There is a scene in Under Southern |
Skies which is received with roars of /
laughter every night by the women in /
the audience, and it goes for almost |
nothing with the men
This is the scene in which the young |
clergyman catches Fiji kissing his i'm |
age in her Halloween glass, discovers |
himself and is surprised that he is quit |
ted instantaneously by the indignant
girl
man author or auditor cannot quite |
grasp the emotional mechanism which
sends the young woman hurrying up
the stairs The women in 'front.' know |
WHY she goes and it amuses them
| IN view of the facts I have set forth
1 above it is rather remarkable tnat
1 there are so few women dramatists OF
note
4 in America: the only one can call to
mind in England. except Mrs. Ryley,
whose productions have been mostly
made in America. is John Oliver
! Hobbies.
/ There probably is a very good reason
for this condition of affairs abroad, ana
| that reason is the unwillingness of the
public to accept women as authors or
plays
a London manager told me that ne onAlRea