The sun., 1905-09-13
A FAIRLY BAD SAMARITAN.
THE NEW ADE COMEDY FALLS
BETWEEN TWO STOOLS.

=. IrrtUc There for Gatirtcal Comedy
Tnat Dcsrncrate5 Into Musical Comedy
without Music Audience Bamcd,
though hAmHsed-Ric,,ard Golden stars
There is no reGson, at least priori, why
George Ade should not have made "The
Rad Samaritan" what he did-a musical ]
comedy without music. One Mendelssohn
wrote sorgs without words, and long
suffering public Is still grateful, 1t is
rcssitle that II "The Bad Samaritan" bad
lisped-or tanged-in numbers the result
world we been altogether on the link
and that fate the play last night at the
Garden Theater escaped.
Yet, why should Mr.. Ade have written
musical comedy at all? The theme with
which he deals is 30 full Of comic posi-
bites of openings for satirical Cross
counters that ne could not escape the
wish that he had remembered his musical
comedy apprenticeship only TO forget it.
The theme is the difficulty which tho best
mentioned Samaritan finds In doing good.
Ike Grdlev Orchard Golden) is wornout
business man, whose relatives, playing on
his feebleness, have put him on the shelf.
Having recovered his health and uses
determined to do good to the honest souls
who have befriended him in his hours Of
neglect,
But the devil gets busy with those whom
he tries to help. New prosperity turns his
him as stingy II he refuses to crafty their
yairest desires. In about two rounds they
NIT him out Of the philanthropy business.
The only good work which he cings to is
n library which he forces down the threats
Of a Hoosier town called New Boston.
That Ia revenge.
Mr. Ade calls his play new American
comedy If he had treated II sincerely
the result might have been at least All ad-
mirable farce--like Labiche's Voyage de
N. Perrichon," for example, in which. the
subspance by a phiosophic and deeply
human idea. But MIR. Ade seems to he suf
ering from what the literary biographers
Of genius call "a period Of exhaust ion"
The first act-to borrow one OF his OWN
locutions-was a pink a1d watery George
ade There was reality in it. hut not much
fun. At the curtain, however, the Ioea
of the Pal Samaritan was hroached, and
one felt that the act had done we'll enough
for starter,
II was in the second act that the musical
comedy treatment was first evident. All
sense Of reality was gone. The stage set
vas so crude and glaring that it could not
qualify even as what Rrandcr Matthews
,sed to call Louis XIV. street furniture.
It was, to be sure supposed to be "a cham
bermaid's dream Of paradise" But n"
anything short of lobster. 1t was stage
managers nightmare of a Third avenue
get haul d out on Broadway. And the
actions of the en,i e cast wers in harmony.
Mr, AIDES sense, of character, usually. so
deft. supple and secure, degenerated into
laJ0 hDy ANA "a
The third act positively cried out for
grand marches, French horns and general
rub-a-duh in the orchestra. There were
underpnnngs a-plenty-supp,ied by what
nots and surf bathers at Nirvana-by-t he
Sea, lhe drdmd'is p?rson9 were int ro-
duced in silent squads, like sextets agai nst
whom the ham had struck.
The wit be- anne grotesquely topica al and
extlavaeantly mad. Rookefelle, q wig was
On the g. cen. For forty years, said Mr..
esPeted me. Now I'm giving i away,
and they tell ire have taint." Carnegie
q the lib aries narrowly oscar ed immor-
talty in topical song; fe.>,
The last act returned to New Boston and
the setting Of the first. It showed Uncie
again on the firm ground of his sense OF
TACT. But be was still suffering from his
period Of artistic exhaustion. He seemed
to feel it himself, and took refuge In fabula
openly in his stage rieoes. 1t was as If
he threw up his hands, like the Indians on
San Salvador in "l492,' end said There's
10 help for it. I'm discovered"
That slang, as uttered in large bunches
by Harry Some, was the one. occasion of
Of unalloyed delight for the final curtain.
But it could not al.er the fate Of the evening
il the play il a success-and IL is not un-
likely to be so-it will be because OF Mr..
AIDES past trumphs and q modicum Of
present wit.
The cast also had the character and the
proportions Of musical comedy. Mr.. Rich
ard Golden, to whom the bulk Of the lines
and the business naturally fell, acted with
spirit and no little JUNCTION. He gathered
no new laures, but he carefully preserved
and even revived the old. George Marion.
small part Of an Italian music teacher.
and carried it off with distinctness Of
grotesque Characterization and hurst
o. comic spirit unequaled by any one else in
tn, the eas1t,,perhaPs unsurpassed on any
same brio the fate Of the pay might have
been different.
.I Grace Fisher had the part Of a village
singer who, with Uncle lkes aid, aspired
70 put Melba out OF business. 1t was,
rather conventional character, but she
acted it creditably. Anne Sutherland
was the leading lady-if there can be said
% have been such part She was the
housekeeper OF the New Boston Hotel,
Who subsequently became Uncle Ikc's
housekeeper in that musical comedy apart
ment mel IN town. In the end Uncle Ike married
her,for the things she cooked, he said,
Which were like mother used to make,
out in reality it was for her genuine heart
ana graces of incipient matronhood Both
oI these Miss Sutherland embodied very
Pleasantly.
After all ITba Rad S,porit,,- q, onl,
half bad lts chief offense is that it con-
talns the Possibilities Of somat hing 80 much