The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-12-12
NANCE O'NEIL AS JUDITH
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

New York. Dec. 9.
m Y grandmother. good old woman.
IVI put all her spare time for
several years and uncouted thou
sands of stitches into sewing Judith Of
Bethulia with coIored worsteds on a big
canvas. My earliest nenory. of a re-
Hgious dispute was about that home
made piece of tapestry. Ny grand
mother was proud of the completed
work and spoke of it as seripturaI Our
pc stOr said, oh, no, il was apocryphal
She replied that, anyway, the story of
Judith cutting Holofernes' head off was
in her Bible. He explained that it was
IN one of the books rejected as holy
writ, though sometimes in a volume
with those that were accepted. The dis
agreement between pastor and parish
icner was so much like a quarrel that
she turned from Baptist to Methodist.
and 70 the end OF her days spoke de-
fiantly of her thread copy OF
a famous painting as scriptural.
Just now l have been startled, as
with vision from childhood, by that
same picture in 4 tsbleau of flesh and
blood in theatrical play. There was
the stately Hebrew woman. richly
Va dpCur AdN lS4iiN ItNtlleu, Win Qer
arms and shoulders barred, as she had
fxer herself To beguile Holifernes in his
tent, and with his brood red on her
hands; there was her handmade Marah.
in a contrasting sober garb of servi-
tude and cOweringly scared while the
mistress stood rigidly resolute: and
there carried by Marah was something
wrapped in a cloth--something which
as a child. I had shivered to know was
the severed head of Israel's cruel enc
my.
This new view of an old tableau was
in the play of-"Judith of Bethulia," and
/ looked around to see if it impressed.
as it did me, people whose grandmoth-
ers hadn't embroidered ii in their mem
Dries. 1T did not seem to quite do that.
although IL was a very vivid incident in
a melodrama, which Thomas Bailey AL
drich had written in blank verse that
counted out right as to syllables. was
correct dramatically as 10 words. and
sounded well as spoken in sonorous
sentences. Other Nliterary merits than
those negative ones the composition did
not possess. It was neither poetic nor
imaginative. But it was above medi-
ocrity. and Boston has appraised it as
have treated il carelessIy. nor failed TO
call it's distinguished author before the
curtain.
Aldrich sets forth the patriotic crime
of Judith simply, clearly and with orig
inal details that accord with the BibIi-
cal narrative. His most striking de-
parture is to make her almost yield to
the magnetism of Holofernes while
working her own hypnotic spell upon
him. Indeed, if she did not take an I'M
fair advantage by putting an opiate
into his wine, the result easily might
be her surrender to him instead of her
capture of his head. In this passage of
an otherwise inactive play Aldrich is a
sensualist like Sardou, and Nance
O'Neil is a siren like Bernhardt. The
Jewish Joan of Arc goes to the Assy-
rian Marat wearing the costume of a
bride and hides her errand of assassin
alton under a pTetense of amorous de-
sire. Miss O'Nen strips herself for The
encounter much more than my grand
mothers Judith dared to- She lis de-
nuded to below the danger line. She
lures her victim While he drinks. and
slave girls dance before him: and bv
the time he is drowsy with the drug she
is tempted-as she explicitly tells us
u mlsbehaVe in the way she has led
him to expect she will. But he falls
asleep on the couch in the midst of
their dalliance, and she draws the cur- /
tain. When she emergeI his blood is on
ner sword and hands, and she sends her
servant In TO bring out his head, /