The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-12-17
sNOtre Jeunesse" theComedy by
Capus the Latest.
RELAXED MORALITY.
Audiences Demand Audacities
Expressed Gracefully.
The Dialogue However Must Be
Highly Polished.

autumn in the opening months of the
season, have at last reached the more
substantial course of the years theat-
rical repast. Alfred Capus, Maurice
Donnay and Henry Bataille-that trio
of dramatists whose productions are as
eagerly awaited by smart Partisan So
ciety as We're the comedies of Dumas
fills, Angler and PaiIleron thirty years
ago-have each presented pieces de re-
sistance which indicate the tendency of
the stage and the taste of the French
public. The tendency seems to be to-
ward general but well hammered re-
Taxation of morality; and the taste of
fashionable theatrical audiences de-
mandS audacities expressed in graceful
''Notre Jeunesse," the four act COM
edy by Alfred Capus, brought out at
the Theater Francois, is SO far the
most important success of the season.
The theme is supplied by a somewhat
misunderstood young wife adopting her
husbands illegitimate daughter, and
this is accomplished without blasts of
rhetoric or sentimental phraseology, but
simply and naturally, almost like an
everyday function of ultra-modern
Partisan life. There is a complete alb
Sence of the old school melOdramatic
atmosphere in which Dumas loved to
place his "Anthonies'' and other illegiti-
mate offspring. Well bred society today
accepts with a complacent smile a sit
uation that the more rigid and more
hypocritical morality of the last gen
GRAFTON of PariSianS would never have
allowed to be presented to them at the
Coincide Franchise, where they are ac-
customed to pass the evening at least
once month with their wives and
daughters.
"Notre Jeunesse" marks the advent
of Alfred Capus at the Theatre Fran
cais-the dramatist's last station be-
fore arriving at the French Acad-
england the success is so great that
the play will in all probability be given
next season in New York and in Lon
don. The story is sentimental, and
the conclusion is happy and optimistic.
Hme. de Rome is a benevolent, kind
hearted, broad-minded widow of fifty.
She and her bachelor brother, Char
tier, are passing the summer at their
cosey little villa at fashionable Trou-
vile. Their guests include the Briant
family, Besancon manufacturers, con-
SiSting of Briant pere, his son Lucien,
and the latter's charming and attrac-
tive wife, Helene, who, misunderstood
and neglected by her husband, leads
lonely existence amid uncongenial sur
roundings; for, besides being bullied
by her cantankerous, despotic, old
fashioned father-in-law, her marriage
irreproachable wife!" she exclaims,
land, what is exceedingly dangerous,
am just beginning to find it out!''
Charter is an old college chum of
ly together of the gay escapades of
their student days in the Latin quar-
ter. Lucien is a pessimist- He is sad
and suspicious, and is under the COM
plete domination of his tyrannical
father, who aWes him by his continual
contempt of modern people and of
up-to-date ideas. The sojourn at
Trouville is a rare bit of sunshine in
the existence of Helene, and there is
a delightful glimpse of seaside f1irta-
ton. from which nevertheless Helene
energies unScathed. 1t appears from
the conversation of Lucien and Char
Lucien had an intimacy with a girl
named Leontine. The rupture which
ensued because of Lucien's marriage
with Helene was a painful one, and
daughter Lucien had passed seventeen
years without news of Leontine. Sud-
denly young girl arrives at the villa
at Trouville, having come from a dis
daughter of Leotine and of Lucien
Briant. How does it happen that the
girl thus drops into the villa like a
falling star? Simply because her
mother is dead, and, left without re-
sources, she comes to Charter, whom
her mother had often spoken of as ga
good friend, to whom she might some
day apply for advice and help" The
girls name is Lucienne. She is well
educated, pure minded and courage
Gus.
governess % she asks him.
''Shan I speak to your father? He is
here at my villa
mo. He does not know me- My moth
er with her dying words enjoined me
not to bother him or to cause him trou-
BILE. I do not wish to see him?''
Charter is charmed by the young girl
and decides to help her. He promises
no one except to his kind hearted sis
ter, Nine. de Rome. While they are
thus talking Lucien Briant, the father
who does not know his daughter, be-
cause he only saw her years ago, when
she was an infant. enters the room. Not
a word is uttered, but by a simple
glance and genture Lucienne becomes
inStinctively conscious that she is in
the presence of her father, and this
dumb scene effectively closes the first
act. Through the kindness of Nine. de
Rome a place is found for Lucienne
with a lady who is about to leave for
south America, the young girl having
refused to receive small sum from her
father, who is in a terrible fright lest
his wife, Helene, should learn of the
existence of his illegitimate daughter.
Meanwhile Helene complains to her
friend Nine. de Rome of her lonely life, |
of her unsympathetic husband, of her
regret that she has no child to fill the
void of her existence, saying: "Ohi If
1 only had a child I have often
thought of adopting one!"
Whereupon the good Mime. de Rome
exclaims: "Why. I have one all ready
at your disposal!"
''Indeed?"
yes, it is a child of your husband
Good graciousi'
Here the details of Lucien's Latin
Quarter escapade are explained.
How old is the child?"
Seventeen"
"Ah, that is rather too old for me-"
ooh! but she is charmingi"
"Ahi It is a girl, then ?'
eyes,
ttCan I see her %
1t is then arranged that Helene shall
pass for the lady who is about to en-
gage Lucienne to accompany her TO