The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-10-16

trial before the inquisition is literature
I in the writing, the one Of the suicide
at the stake is art in the construction,
and the play entire as given here by
one Of the best of Frohman companies,
is Individually d success in SardOuisrl.
Two American actors who have never
been too well rewarded for their good
abilities and ambitious efforts, although
both have prospered reasonably, are
Otis Skinner and Henry Miller. Each
introduces play in Broadway this
week You have had Miller's. Skin
ner's is by the same Jean Richepin who
came from Paris to sue David BelascO
about the disputed authorship of "Du
Barry" but settled the case out of
court and went home with a contenting
sum OF money. By coincidence, Rich
epin's 'The Harvester is like Sar0ou's
The Sorceress' right across the street,
in having the central character accused
of witchcraft. But in the harvester's
case the belief is placed to his credit.
He is cherished as a mascot. bringing
good luck TO the farm that he comes
TO. and not known for the evil that he
really does to a work girl over whom
he throws a spell Of love. This fellow
Is wayfarer, and idealized tramp. the
biithest Of workers and the most shift
less Of wanderers. Beerbohm Tree
made him an English gypsy in a YER
sion called Ragged Robin"
Skinner transports Kim to Canada
without changing tie French spirit of
the man or the play. Ee ought to mar
~ the girl, Toinette upon his first visit
to. the neighborhood. but roams away
without doing il. His second visit is
In H.
mother of a grown son of whom he is
the father, and she has a husband who
doesn't know the secret of the parent
age. Out of that complication comes
the portion of the drama that is ad-
mirable. Ill fortune has settled down
upon the place. The harvester is be-
sought to bring again the prosperity
that attended his former presence. His
only sorcery has been goOd-humor and
buOyant vim: and he applies them to
the satisfaction of the neighborhood. as
before, but now he sets himself also to
the task Of righting some of his wrong
to Toinette by rescuing their son from
drunkenness, and marrying him to a
girl who has been kept from him. Hav-
ing accomplished that job in necrom-
ancy, he goes on his way again.
The pure dictatiOn of RicheDin and
Skinner combine well in The HarVes-
ter" the wording and the speaking be-
ing alike satisfying. A scene in which
the father, without revealing his rela-
tionship. lovingly gains control of his
hayward son is effectual with natural
pathos i'm both manner and delivery.
We are SO used 10 the good mounting
Of plays nowadays that adequacy is ex-
pected in every Broadway production,
but here Canadian wheat field at har-
nd az, i'm,
uncommonly artistic pictures. For at
mospheric phenomena there is the APP
preach of a storm which looks real
enough to warrant the amateur sor-
cerer's pretense that il is of his own
make-that he is a weather producer at
viii.
1t would seem that New York play
goers-or at least those who make
themselves known as first-nighters-
set up idols for the sole sake of pulling
them down Three weeks ago they
yelled themselves hoarse in congratul-
ating George AIDE upon a point of
laughing very mildly. sometimes not at
ali. at lines in his new play of The
Sho-Gun" that would be hailed as elias
sizes in almost any other comic opera
liberetto of the day. Thus is a mans
second best dubbed by his own best
work. Still the name of AIDE has its
uses, and second and third nighters
accepted it as good enough guarantee
10 invest two dollars apiece in the lot
terry of fun. and they certainly drew a
prize. each one.
Any AIDE play, in general. and an
AIDE libretto, in particular. is almost
to describe Their merit
is SO wholly in the language that the
next morning you wonder why you
laughed. Manager Savage is under
stood, 10 believe he has brought about
g the cola boration of AIDE and Gustav
Euders, great combination, but