The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-12-25

n IA II IN W lANG F14NElNO IdS never
n written more singular play in
all his thirty-six than THE Wife
Without Smile" 1t is said that he
gave two years 10 Lefty" which he
regards as his best serious drama, and
only two weeks to Dandy Dick"
(which rs regarded by others as his
best farce. | haven't heard how much
time he spent on the piece that is in
troduced here this week. with beaUti-
ful Margaret Ellington for the wife.
who justifies the title awhile by be-
ing smileless. until she suddenly gTins
and then laughs. Possibly. with an
odd conceit in his mind for the plot,
his pen linked his paper so rapidly. SO
readily and rapidly that the job was
done I'm a jiffy Of two days. Mr.. Rip
pingill is a joker whose jokes are jo-
Cose to himself. but not TO Mrs. Rip
pingill. They keep her lugubrious but
he goes right on making them i'm hope
fui faith that some one of them viii
compel her % turn up the corners Of
her > outh and show her teeth They
dor 4 An advisory friends says that,
IF Z ~-lamity were to grieve her deep
y a reaction might send her spirits
killing up from gloom into gaiety. 1t
happens just at this juncture that Rip
pingill learns of a flaw in his divorce
from a previous wife, by which the
present acting wife isn't his actual
wife. Aha, he and his friends reason,
here is the disaster that viii, after the
first stunning blow, knock Mrs. Rip
pingill into hilarity on the rebound.
To their surprise. she doesn't drop
deeper into dumps before rising into
n state of glee. She smiles i'm a sec
ond after being told that she isn't
married and laughs outright in min
ute after being assured that il is real
~ so, because She is glad that she
won't have to be bored any more by
the mans Wanted sence Of hUmOT.
That is the Eist Of the widely dis
CUssed Pinero play. II is light sketchy,
inCOnseQuential. almost a burleSque.
but plentiful i'm wit and not scant in
humor. As acted by a chosen COM
pany, II is like comedy, where less
deft treatment would make it like
farce. Especially is Miss Ellington
amusing with the changeful moods Of
the deliciously giddy young wife.
One of the actors i'm "The Wife With
out a Smile" is the Englishman who.
I'm years agone. was known as Hand
some Jack Barnes. When he was the
hero 10 Mary Anderson's heroines he
really did hold his own against her
superlative beauty. But time has
passed, and now he is an associate
Of the newly lovely Miss Ellington as
an eccentric old fellow in the Pinero
piece. Something had happened to one
of his legs, and he had to hObble
around with a cane. But Barnes
wasn't the only figure that went lame
on the opening night. a doll from
which shocking activity was expected,
because it had performed that way in
London, was as mOtiOnless as though
stricken with paralysis. And by that
same stroke the dumb thing, although
rendered numb, became more interest
ing than the most demonstrative con-
duct could have made 1t. a lately
welded couple, the Webbmarshes, are
guests of the Rippingills. The BRIDE
groom is an author, the bride is his
amanuensis, and they retire often to
their upper room to work together:
also TO play at spOOning; and their
host thinks it will be a rare joke. if
he runs a wire through the floor,
bitches the upper end to a sofa in
the honeymoon chamber and hangs a
doll to the lower end in the drawing
room below.
Don't you see" says he, that when
the Webbmarshes sit on the sofa up
here he can't so much as squeeze her
hand without making the doll CULVER
down here, and if he hugs her the doll
funny that my wife can't help smil-
ing Eh, what?"
But the joke is a boomerang that
hits the poker hard when II comes back
on him. When the dangling doll dances
madly in air, he learns that the two
persons on the sofa are not the Webb
mashes. but his own unofficial wife
who by this time is gay with her mari
tai release-and a lover to whom she
iTr1Va no v,f he Z
least that is the dolls role as writ
ten by PineTO and acted in London.
1t amazed audiences more than il
amused them, and the audacious au-
thor, at the very top of the English
dramatists, was thrown down to the
bottom by the offended public. The
device of the pendulous doll had been
used in many a Salacious French farce,
but it wasn't tOlerable when utilized
by the famed English writer of pure
Sweet Lavender" even though he had
been excused for holiness in Iris"
King Edward hadn't been squeamish
Electrically when ne was the Prince
of Wales. but on the throne he struck
his good mothers pose of dignity and
voiced the general condemnation Of
the doll detective. At the royal sug-
gestion the play was withdrawn i'm
London last Saturday.
Meanwhile the Frohmans had con-
sored the play for production in New
York last Monday. Charles Frohman
was the manager. and MargarIt IL
lington. cast for the wife who didn't
smile and then did is Daniel Froh-
mans bride Of a year. The brothers
decided at rehearsal that the activity
of the doll was pernicious. and must
be reduced to innoCuOus desuetude The
first nighteTs. knowing what had hap
pened in London. and hearing rumors
that the offending figure wouldn't he
shown in New York at all. weret as
alert an asSemblaee as I have ever
seen in a theatre When the doll was
brought out from box Of TOYS they
gdbbled. and when it WAS attached to
the wire they snickered Then they
became tensely silent while waiting for
fl 10 wtg-wag its signals OF what was
being donein the room overhead. But
IL never stirred, nor Will il ever. 1t
Will keep still in every sense OF the
word hereafter. Rippingin will tell
how IL is goinge TO dance but II won't
be permitted TO do it, Spectators will
have to imagine the eliminated part
Of the show. A mental recital of the
songs refrain about a BOwery girl
who became an oriental dancer. i'm THE
Belle of New York may help out the
vision:
She's wabby and she's jerl1y.
And they call her Little Turkey,
When she does the squimy-wormy i'm
the naghty cOuchee dance"
Quite seriously. though ] suggest
that most Of the Offense might be tax
on out of the episode by having the
joker. instead Of telling that he has