The Saint Paul globe., 1904-03-06
NEW FRENCH PLAY
SCORES A Big HIT
Captures Paris, Berlin and
London and VIII Be Brought
to This Country.
ON a Staff Correspondent.


Brieux's play, La Robe Rouge"-done
into English as 'gThe Arm of the Law"
has captured London, just as 1t
captured Paris and Berlin, it's produc-
ton in the United States probably is
only matter of weeks-or months, at
most When first this uncommonly
successful piece was given in Paris it
was intensely purposeful.
ia Robe Rouge (*The Red Robe")
referred to that worn by judges in
France, and the authors object was to
show to what lengths Gallo law en-
powered magistrate to go in bullying
"a prisoner in order to make him con-
fess. Hence the play was rather full
Of technicalities. Fer use in Germany
the drama was merely translated, but,
1t having been represented to M.
Brieux that AngloSaxen audiences
would not be greatly interested in the
portions of his work which were al
most purely legal, the playwright con-
sented to recast it, and made such lib
eral cuts that the plays original four
acts have been reduced to three, these
being concerned only with the powerful
story which "The Arm of the Law has
to tell.
MouZon, the examining magistrate
of q little French town, is the central
figure in the play. Unscrupulous and
desireus only for promotion, we find
him at the beginning of the first act
impatient over the comparatively
small number OF convictions which he
has been able to gain during the past
year. Suddenly news comes of the
murder of an elderly man in the neigh
fol tIa oerics
trate is possessed of but one desire
to bring some one to the guillotine for
the crime by fair means or foul.
He arrests a peasant, Pierre Etche-
pare, the husband of a woman named
Yanetta, and, once having got them in
court, he endeaYors by tricks, by
threats and by cajoleries to draw con-
fession from one and cendemnatory
evidence from the other. He does not
succeed in this, but he does succeed In
running the couples happiness. For
he manages to draw from Nine. Etche-
pare the story of an episode in her
past which her husband never has
known.
1t seems that, as a girl of sixteen,
Yanetta was betrayed by a man and
forced by him to receive money which
he had stolen, for which offense she
was imprisoned for a month. Years
after, to her came Pierre Etchepare
with his love. For months she refused
to marry him, being unwilling to tell
him her story, but finally consented,
going to the altar, however, with seal
ed lips. Their welded life has been
happy, and they have children.
After hearing this tale eXtorted from
his wife by Mouzon in the public court,
however, Etchepare SpurnS her. He is
acquitted of the charge of murder, but
refuses to have anything to do with
his wife, declaring that he will take
their children away with him to Amer
lea.
Toward the end of the last act we
see Yanetta, alone and broken n-hearted,
in an ante-room of the court. Mouzon
enters, radiant. He has failed to get
Etcheparer convicted, it is true, but he
is sure that he has earned promotion.
On the table lies paper knife-a
rather grewsome present made to the
magistrate by the folk of the locality
for his efforts in bringing another
murderer to justice. Yanetta picks up
the weapon, kills the magistrate with
it, and the curtain falls The French
author having scored his point against
the law of his country, does not even
think it necessary to tell us whether
Etchepare was guilty or not.
At-4he Garrick theater Arthur Bour-
chier, whose fortunes, of late have been
rather on the wane, has made a really
striking success as MouZon, and his
wife, Violet Vanbrugh, almost as bril-
liant one as Yanetta.
Bill Posters as censors.
The Bill Posters association, q pow
erful organization which controls most
Of the outdoor advertising spaces in
r ND orb
has just constituted itself censor
and preserver of public morals. In
stigated thereto by complaints, mainly
from clergymen, that sensational the
atrical posters operate as incentives to
crime and encourage depravity in the
young, this gTandmotherly body has
issued an edict that hereafter lurid
Autographs depicting the CORY tri-
umphs of stage villainy, or outraged
innocence taking the law into its own
hands with the pistol and poinard, will
no longer be pasted up by members of
that association to arouse the blood
thirsty instincts of a weak and erring
British public. Villainy may be de-
picted a prey to the pangS of remorSe,
and innocence on bended knee appeal
ing to heaven for succor, but they
must not be shown abandoning them
selves to the primitive instincts of
fallen human nature. In other words,
the Bill Posters association has put
its foot down hard on pictorial dis
plays of what gallery patrons regard
as 'hot stuff"
1t has appointed committee to ex-
anime theatrical posters deemed to be
of an immoral tendency and empower
ed this committee to order the re-
moyal of offensive details and insists
on such alterations as may be neces-
Sary to render them innocuouS under
penalty of refusing to stick them up.
From designs submitted to them these
censors have already blotted out many
blood d1 ipping daggers and smoking
revolvers, and glasses of wine and
packs of cards are likely to be as
harshly dealt with.
All this is agreeable enough to the
purveyors of drawing room comedies
and physiological plays, but it has
aroused the wrath of the theatrical
proprietors who go in for melodrama.
IF 1 didn't have sensational post
ers,' said one of these, the other day,
Il should lose half my audience. AS
to saying they are incentives to crime
that is simply 'tommyrot.'" To which
a member of the censor committee of
the Bill Posters association replies:
I'VE do not assert that these objec-
tionable pictures are an actual in
centive to crime, but we do say that
they may become so and they cannot
have an edifying effect on the be-
holder" The public has yet to be
heard from on the subject.
At Woman's Club.