Evening star., 1903-09-19
DRAMAS SW|THMORALS
New Workers. Laugh and Jeer
at an English Actor.
SOME VERY BUSY BEES
BROKER HAD HIS STRAW HAT
FILLED WITH LIGHTNING.
Rebuke Administered to Careless Wife
Troubles in Flat-Popular
Tunes Played to Death.
Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star.

NEW YORK. September 49, 1903.
New Workers. openly sneer at a play that
lis even mildly didactic. But when an at
tempt Is made to serve out theatrical vir-
tue to them in allopathic doses they guffaw
at the lesson. and when the moral-clinch-
Ing nature of the performance is disclosed.
they stay away which is worse. They
scott at the play with moral. They won t
stand for the actors and actorines who en-
deavor to point out to them the path of
righteousness through the medium of dra-
matte parallels. They demand tabasco
sauce, not syllabub. They yawn and look
bored even at a risque play when exalted
sentiments are occasionally uttered. The
v1rtuous heroine who gets the worst of 1t
under any circumstances is derided by them
as young person not wise to the game" 4"
The renunciatory stage hero is commonly
regarded as more or less of a milksop by
New York theater-goers. The villain is ap-
proved as a pretty good fellow, a crafty
proDosition who Is entitled to take what Is
coming to him. and more. If he can get it.
An English actor is doing a melodrama
called Drink at one of the big downtown
theaters Drink was done by this same
actor something like J, 500 times in England.
which Is given by the shows press agent as
ire most pregnant reason why it ought to
be a hit on this side. Drink is made
over and touchdown dramatiza ton of
IL Assomoir. one of Zola's early and more
fetid warns. 1t Is devised to administer a
series of solar plexus blows to the rum
habit. 1t had that effect in England they
say, Dut then. there's not the sense of hui
NOR In England that there is on this side,
nor vet the stubborn disnclina ton that ex-
ISIS in New York to be taught things from
the stage
Ihe most tremendous sla bangs at the
arink evil in the play only evoked the hi
iarlty or the audience on the first-night pre-
sentation of the show here. When the
English actor playing the part of the be-
sotted workman was squiiming around
the stage in the throeS of the doljri,m
tremens the crowd warmed up in it's first
real enjoyment of the evening. The rum
soaked workman was meant to present a
frightful picture, but the New York au-
dlence declined to fright The downstairs
folks looked at each other and laughed.
The galleryites hooted and howled derisive-
~ They all but broke up the show with
such ba ~led remarks the following:
IT de Bellevue bug ward fr youse.''
Hey. t,row anudder bali into y'r face
an yousell stop dem Willies!'
'WOt is dis-a w. c. L. u. frame-up?'
Take him out-he's got de charley
horse.''
Jaw. Jack, look up dis-a-way an tell us
how many blue monkeys an pink zebras
dey is in de sky paror''
Look out, dere. BiII-deys a bunch O.
cobras behind youse,''
L
mixed an youse'll be all right.'
Hey, be, we'll never drink anudder
sourd o suds-not till we git out o here
an aerost de street."
''CoiSes de hateful stufY-gimme a
barrel of iti'
Dat settles tim troo wit rye
Scotch FIR mne,"
Look out, dere. Cagey. or de foist ting
youse knows youse'll be doin a t'irt y-day
space de Islam
"Aw, cut out de wrgglin' an play BALI"
From which it is possible to draw the de-
duction that the lesson of the play didn't
stick hard enough to hurt any Most of
the gallerytes focked out and across the
way to the rumOrium of Tom Sharkey, the
pug, long before the show was ended. They
told the barkeeps that Drink drove them
to drink. The English actor rawther fawn-
cies, y'knaw-he so intimated. diplomatical-
ly. after the first night-that New York
theat ter-Soers are bit callous and hard
ened-Such raw lot of begGahS up aloft
yknaw. fie is right. But, after ALL there
is such thing as too much mawkishness
and the lessons that endure are not those
that are batled into humorous and imagi-
native heads with a club. New York thea
ter-goers are willing to take 1t for granted
without oracular and ocular demonstration
that the d. It's are a bad job. They are
also willing to take chances on not getting
the d. ts. Anyhow, it has been shown
beyond cavil time and again, that the mod
ern New York thea.er-goer will not stand
for the play that seeks to incuIcate right
eous living. Augustin DAILY was the first
man to produce Ten Nights in a Bar
room." and it was success. but that was
good many years ago. Ten Nights in a
Barroom" on first-rate New York stage
today would be booed and. not improba bly,
cabbaged.
Harlem's Folding Flats.
Additional light-if additional light were
needed-was cast upon the diminutiveness
Of the average Harlem fat during the pro-
gress of a police court case the other day.
A young married woman. rather pretty,
was arrested for annoying the people living
in the Harlem fiat beneath. her own fiat.
1t seems that the young married woman
had deliberately allowed the water in her
bath tub to overflow. The water percolated
through the floor and partly ruined the
piano in the nat below, much wet plaster
having fallen on the instrument. The pro-
Lrietor of the fiat building preferred the
additional complaint against the pretty
young married woman of wantonly destroy
ing property.
The latter, in her defense admitted that
she had permitted the water in her bath
tub to overflow, but she said she had been
rendered almost insane by the constant
ton of "Hiawatha" and Mr..
Dooley" by the piano-thumpers in the fiat
below Each member of the family in tie
fat below, the young woman declared. took
crack at ''Hiawatha' during all of The
waking and most of the sleeping hours of
tlt tWenty-rOuf, ana. DetWeen them, she
said, "Hiawatha" was never allowed to
rest from one days end to the other. So,
after asking the folks down below to cut
out "Hiawatha" during. at least few
hours of the day, the young married wo-
man had allowed the water in her bath rub
to overflow. She Admitted it, but her
nerves were in that state, &C., &c.
But 1 don't exactly understand this"
said the magistrate to the pretty prisoner.
You are living. you say. in the fiat directly
over this complainant. The arrangement OF
the flats must, therefore, | take it, be the
same. How, then, could the overfiowed
water from the bath room bath tub have
caused the plaster to fall in the fiat below
and damage the piano?"
''Oh we keep the piano in the bath room
your honor" put in the complainant. Its
the only place where there's room for it,"
The magistrate grinnsd. Then he re-
marked that the perpetual pounding of
"Hiawatha'' constituted quite lot of prov
ocation on the part of the young woman.
He turned the young woman loose upon the
promise of her husband to pay for The
damage caused by the overfowed water
And / would advise you," playfully
marked the magistrate TO the complainant,
''to abandon .Hiawatha' as an incessanf
rianoforte performance. Why not try
little Tchaikowsky?
'.Oh. we don't play them rag-time tunes.
your honor!' hastily replied the complain
ant. and then the magistrate gasped and