The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-04-11
The stage Is Threatened.

Detroit Free Press:
Half a dozen ITishmen can make any
kind of a. well1in ring and when 200 turn
themselves loose with decayed and
odoriferous missiles to criticise a theat-
rica1 performance, there is nothing fur
Their for the regular critics to say The
casus belli in the Star theater affair in
New York was a burleSque of irish
character in one of these horse plays
so popular with a certain class OF thea
ter-goers, and it is announced that the
allied Irish societies purpose to suppress
all that sort of thing by what their ven
cradle countryman, Mr.. DOoiey. would
call 9TH str-rong arm treatment" 1t
is not suppOsable that they viii take
the law into their own hands without
encountering the resultant penalties, but
what should stop them without further
demonstration is the inevitable ten
dency of their movement.
Fxaggeration upon the stage is as es-
sential as Imagination to romance. This
is as true of the most sane and whole
some plays as of those in the innumer-
able list that ignore plot and cohesion
in making way for speclaltles that must
be strained, cOlored and oVercharged IN
order to succeed. In rip Van Wrinkle
Mr.. Jefferson portrays an idle, dram
drinking Dutch spendthrift whom no
moralist would dare to take as a model.
The marvellous genius of the actor
makes us accept the vagabond as nat
ural but it is only a superb idealiza-
ton that we see If this rage against
exaggeration is to have a run the sons
and daughters of Holland must bonn
bard Jefferson from the stage with Of
fensive weapons because he has made
the world weep, laugh and voice adj
miration over an improvident sot that
IS the fartheSt removed from the true
character of their people.
Because of the stage Englishman of
the Dundreary stripe, with his monocle,
his skip. his stutter and his senseless
chatter, or in the extreme Of burleSQue
as exemDlifed in Lords Percy and Har-
old. BTitons may be expected to get to-
gether their waning eggs and vegetab Ies
to purge the stage of these humiliatlng
eXaggerationS. Statesmen have like
cause for resentment against THE Sem
ator'' and 1.-The Texas Steer The negro
has case SO strong that the stage can
do nothing but plead guilty even
though the count as to the blOOdhOundS
the .Markses" and the misre2resented
age Of Little Eva be "nolle pressed. .
The modern villain in fact is as Shrewd
as the Wall street crowd and frequently
presents handsome contributions to the
art galleries of the police His class
may we'll say that the beetle-browed
stage criminal with his atrocious
makeup, cigarette and eternal "A-hai>
must back to the hack stand"
Nobody escapes this essential in stage
prosperity The sons and daughters OF
New England get it in The Old Home
stead the whole Yankee contingent IN
up DIRK State and the many play S
of the same type. The westerner con-
tinues to be wild. woolly and hard to
curry" Society is ripped to pieces with
more than the fury and less than the
poetic fire that inspired Ibsen. The
thrifty. stolid German is caricatured
and the world never tires Of laughing at
him. All that is natural in life is mag
mined upon the stage, or there would be
no audiences to support the stage. ard
it has hitherto been the theory of many
of our Irish friends that nobody except
German would take an Irish bur
lescue seriously.