The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-06-18
WYOMING IDEAS.
How the Popular Novels Should
Be Staged.
Book Lore Heroes Sacrificed to
Demands Of Stage.
FALL OF "QUO VADIs. .
+" PasselI of Hired Assassins
Make MInce- Neat"
Sienkiewicz Maaterpiece Went
Through ChOpping Bowl.

From Sagebrush Philosophy: Fame
firm-footed and full-feathered-wiH
roost upon the helmet of the good
knight who in Washingtonian lists first
/ breaks a lance in behalf of a national
law absolutely prohibiting the drama
tizatiOn of certain stories, whose scenic
scope and title and theme are plainly
beyond the confines of any stage. You
have experienced the thrill of horror
which attaches to this thought know
the feeling of disgust and disappoint-
ment and downright adherence of an
outrage committed-a sanctuary viola
ted-an idolized image torn from its
pedestal and broken into bits. How
! once loved ''Ben Hur'-with what rev.
| erence lifted it from the shelf and
how often spent an hour in the tents
| of Sheik Ilderin, on the house top with
/ the good Simonides, or in the deserted
arena of the circus of Antioch where
! the proud Roman was humbled through
| the prowess of the Jew.
But I saw the play-and never again
| could pick up the book without hear
/ ing the rumble and roar of that devil
| ish mechanical race track on which
/ Messiah and Ben-Hur did their stunt;
| the skeleton of the story as paraded on
the stage glaring at me from between
every ine-an the beauty and pathos
of the tale lost in whiting it down
to a. peg to fit a hoie.
We gods how suffered while watching
| a passed. of hired assassins make naince
meat of QUO Vadis" beneath pros
cenium opening. The ShriekS of the
tortured Christians-whom a merciful
playwright had hid behind a water-color
stone wall-ring in my ears till yet, be-
cause I was in with it at the time-I
knew what hurt 'em, see?
You can stand for an Uncle Tom,
whose white hide shows through mis-
shirt sleeves and whose wig isn't on
4 Low
fiddle in the wings while Nero is toast
/ ing his too-attenuated shins before a
gas CRATE in the cleaning is like
warm and willing mustard plaster on u
papier-mache ham-it won't work.
have never forgotten, nor can L ever
forgive.
And we read now that Jack London's
wonderful boOk-Which is merely the
diary of a dog, and yet strains every
nerve in the man who has a red corpus
Gle or two and a hearts to likewise
go on the operating table and have a
few things cut out Of it for dramatic
DAVIS to peck at. What a ghoulish con-
ception-and what joke on the dog!
This much by way of preface to a
remark or two concerning owen Wis
ter's Wyoming story THE Virginian,"
which has gone the way Of all the rest
and which saw reproduced on a Chi |
cago stage the other day. You remen- /
Der the Virginian-mOst of US have met |
him, time and again. Though attired In
sombrero, schaps, six-pistol. and spurs
there was nothing in his leather ana |
silver-plated lingerie to excite comment |
because his was the costume OF the COW
punch as we have known him all these |
years.
But the virgfnian I know never
would shy at a bouquet of booze, and
invariably took er straight to sorter
neutralize the alkali. His grammar
was considerably off grieve to say it !
and lacked the Queen-Ann polish or I
that particular period; but 1t may he /
said Of it that you didn't have to guess |
again-that his United States was most
in gen1 sailed with enough biblical 1
Tobasco to give it both pith and point, /
and do away with all necessity for
diagram.
met the rnummy-had decided, as
long since did the preceptor OF Pure
Stuph, that to live, laugh, and love,
you cant-else why that fiagrant /
Irritation with Medicine Bows hash /
foundry fairy, and whence the req
trail for the nowth the next nawnin' /
And he had other vices, brethren, |
chief among which was a fondness for
the four-card hush-the which you |
sometimes fill!
And monte-the real Mexican
monte-was what a Down East die
tionary Teller called his fortay! This /
was the Virginian We Wyomlngltes
knew and loved for his virtues as well /
as his vices, and when he came riding
in on owen Wister's cactus pa pyrus
pages we hailed him as comrade and
friend-and accordin' to custom in
vited him cordial-like to take sunthin'
which he did!
But the cuss met in Chicago as
pretended to be our old pard was a
iow-down, cotton-chewin', Montgom-
cry &. Ward rep.-and that's the an
swer! Though evidently sufferin'
from a thirst born of the night before,
he never took a drink during the
n1-ogress of the plav which appeared
to lap over a good many months.
Think of a cowboy on a water wagon,
men and women of Wyoming, and
weep!
And his grammar! I have heard
Chicago as she is spoke; have inter
preted Hoboken, slowly sifted st.
Louis through my cerebellum, digest
ed the Frisco dialect, and bearded the
beaneater in his very lair-but all
these are as primal understudies be-
side the hand-laundried lingo which
this rooster lifted over the footlights.
It was Ladies Home Journal delica-
tesen, that's what it was, with an
oratorical orchid chucked in here. and
a long-stemmed photographed Beaut
at So the doz. pinned on there-and
never a rib-roastin' persuader ap-
pearin' in the entire procession.
But I didn't entirely lose heart
thinks I, the old boy has been hand
lin copper cents, and he's foxy-he's
dOin the parquet now just to prove
that his boots will take a poIish-but
he never did cut out a crossword
durin' the entire roundup. There was
the scene at the card table, when
Trampas calls him a son-of-a-gun, an
he quietly suggests to Trampas that |
he'd better smile when he says that |
blessed if it ever showed up, or if |
it did I couldn't see it through my
tears The Teller did wear six
which he handled like it was a ba-
mana he proposed to peel-and he did
finally get Trampas in the last act ac-