The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-01-10


from me. because you couldn't guess
IL In thousand times trying Little
Mary is not 4 dear little heroine. nor
any kind Of girl She is the Human
Stomach. There is no pertinency in
the name. 1t is no more opposite than
Big Jennie would be. But it is Barrie's
joke, and he plays 1t on the audience
till the curtain is about to fall. Then
he explains that his Little Mary, fire.
quently mentioned by the principal
young woman in the comedy, is his
purely arbitrary and fanciful term for
the stomach Of the English gourmand.
The real heroine Of this freakfsh piece
Of fiction is a genial Irish creature.
who learns from her aged grandfather,
an Observant druggist, that the Eng
lish aristocFacy has been oYerfed and
underexercised until its digestion. and
consequently in its disposition. has be-
come bad. After the death OF her
grandparent she keeps the secret Of his
discovery while using il euratively
Thus she becomes known as a mys-
ferrous health giyer. using no medicines
and vari0usly surmised to be a Spirit
ualistic medium, a Christian Scientist
and satanic witch, while her only
method is to induce less eating and
more activity.
The entertainment yielded by this
comedy. with its irOnical travesty and
satirical burlesque. and with its eth
zeal purpose mixed in with the absurd
tiles. is especially enjoyable by people
keen for theatrical novelty, but not at
all for those who prefer usual things
on the stage. Barrie has gone further
away from she normal-shall I say
from the sane ?-cOnventions Of mod
ern society than he did in his other
remarkable play. ''The Admirable
CrichtOn,' in which a butler rises su-
perior to his employers family of dull
lards, In Little Mary It is an hum
BILE Mora LOney who, by introducing
the stomach cure into the household
of a high and mighty Countess OF
Plumleigh, dominates an aristocratic
circle. She is brought there TO aper-
ate on the invalid daughter Of the
house, who, after being trundled about
in g wheel chair for months, leaps out
of il and dances in the joy Of good
health. Besides that. an indolent lord
ling becomes Industrious. a u1atron' s
suriiness disappears in buoyancy. two
mismated sweethearts break their be-
trothal amicably and an estranged IA
Their and son get TO be chums-aH be-
cause MORA has induced them to mod
crate their vOracity. When they are
well and happy they Ciamor for the
secret Of the change which she has
wrought without any tangible medium.
Thereupon she speaks the tag-end
moral Of the play-the lesson, OF tenn
perance at the table; and simuItane-
ously Barrie gives a final gibe to one
Of the English unreasonable pTeju-
dices. II is considered vulgar over
there to mention the stomach. They
are as shy to name that organ Of di-
gestion as we are the belly. So, when
MORA Loney says, right cut loud. that
little Mary is a synonym for stomach,
the countess and her relatives are
shocked dreadfully.
Pretty sentiment has not been eK-
cluded by Barrie from his fantastic
play Moira LOney is such a winsome
girl OF twelve in the first act. as en-
bodied by Jessie Busley that It is easy
to imagine she IS the Little Mary She
Is the hOusekeepe- for her grandfather
and at the same time the care taker
Of three orphans, who range from four
months TO four years in age. When
the curtain rises two Of them show
their heads over the box shelves which
are their beds. while she mothers them
affectiOnately and iuils an infant to
sleep in her arms with much cooling
and cuddllng. The Earl of Carlton,
impersonated by Henry +. Dixey,
comes to the drug shop with a pre-
scriptiOn and waits in the nving room
while it is being compounded. He is
charmed by the naivete of the girl in
her open admiration Of him. Six years
later, when she goes TO the slumleigh
house, they meet again and one of the
results of her miniStrat ioDs' there Is
that the earl. with his stiff social ideas
limbered by stomachic Improvement,
loves and marries her. And Mora Is
50 engaging, with her Irish accent and
clipped words that you don't think Of
the match as unsuitable. or that she
VII never be congenialiy at home in an
earl's mansion as she was in her grand
pas back room, mothering those chill
dren-
Mary ManneTing appears as a bride
la "HarTiet's Honeymoon, q farce
newly transformed from the German
by Leo DletTichstein. lie has made
five of the characters American. bat
has left the scenes in Germany. There
is an element OF ailment and cure in
this play too, as the place is at o
health resort and some obese women go
bout drinking mineral spring water
mugs strapped TO their persons-in the
hope of washing away some of their
fat. Arthur Bryan is there as a bro
ker from Wall Street on his wedding
tour and he has not left his business
cares behind His new wife thinks he
should have nothing but her on his
mind and she loses her temper because
he can't or won't. Thus Miss Manner
ing has TO put both acid and sugar into
her representation. TO be aiternA tely
loving and hateful. These capHcious
moods are aggravated by the dilemma
of the couple when the man mieIsys
his letter of credit and is distrusted by
his landlord. The broker seems 10 for
get that Temittances can be made by
cable. Instead Of teleg.aphing for
money. he pretends that hia wife Is a
professional. vocalist and hires her TO
sing at a concert. A maze Of perplex-
tiles ensue, all farcical and most Of
them funny, but none Of a grade to
let Miss Msnnering be proud of her
self. But they are clean and harmless.
and they permit her to be vivacious
one Of her achievements is 20 sing Sc
lently. That happens at the concert
The star actress works her Own mouth
while p concealed woman d0es-ths sing
ing. The best dramatic voices are often
10 tunes Matilda Heron.
in her great performance in East
Lynne, used to MARBLE Then You1i
Remember Ne" pathet!cslly by proxy.
Augustus Thomas new comedy. THE
Other Girl. was produced Just too late
to be- described in last Sundays letter
= The Herald. A parson and a pugi-
list are the princinnFs Tee, af,rsyso.