The sun., 1905-11-05


her formal morality is even more revolt
ing without the palcst flush either Of girIish
love or womanly virtue-poai,ivcly de-
prayed in fact, in her easy acceptance of
her mothers self justification. Young Gcr-
diaer is tho typical Shaw man, cynical, Zip
and shallow. His weakly vicious, clerical
father is drawn in the perspective Of broad
farce. True to life they may all be- but the
great problems Of humanity do not work
Themselves out in such vessels.
The harshness and acerbity OF the mood
Shavian, delicious as are the surprises it
gives ono in farcical satire Is sadly out Of
place in the treatment of anything requir-
ing vital humanity and simple seriousness.
Light without heat is what he gives us,
stimulus without nourishment. But the
atmosphere Of comedy needs warmth as
well as light, and the stuff of tragedy must
nourish as we'll as excite, II Ihsen had
taken us down into this grave of mortal
sin he would have made us feel at least
the nobility of death, and the dawning OF
a larger hope for humanity. Shaw has
ripped open the coffin to offend us with
stencil and alright Jig with the maccabee
grinning Of skull.
is 1t not fit commentary on the pass we
have come to that 1t Ia necessary to draw
this elementary distinctions That our press,
at once the freest press in the world and
the one that most vey abuses its free
dom, should become an engine to crush
the freedom Of the stage is grotesquely
comic. But what shall we say when our
police, which generally battens on prosti-
tuition and in spite Of the clearest OF laws
always tolerates it, uses vague and ire
sponsible powers to prohibit Its mere ar
tistio representation? That obvious sour
rity "The Turtle" gave rise to a statute
against disorderly conduct in the theatre,
and lo it Is first used to ban play the
intention Of which is unmistakably intel
lectual and social. Prostitutes and their
patrons, who flourish on the other side Of
Broadway, fragrant and unnoested, take
a vacation at the Garrick, and the place
becomes at once house OF III fame, which
must be closed to good and bad alike The
disreputable element in the audience goes
back to its life in the Tenderloin, but the
manager and the actors-among them two
women Of spotless reputation in their pri-
vate life and in their art-are summoned
before the magistrate.
And note the serried logic with which
Mr.. McAdoo justihes what he has done!
"Played at the Academy OF Music, on the
East Side, or at the Grand Opera House, on
the West Side, at popular prices, the effect
on public morality would be most per-
nicious' Admirable this as a justification
for stopping it at one of the most artistic
and sophisticated theatres in the city! Mr..
McAdoo does not even pretend that the
play might be given in the popular houses.
Il doubt, however, if the hard working
and plain minded heads of families in those
neighborhoods would permit it to be played,
Doubt" is a mild word. Nothing is more
certain than that they would not. In their
widest nightmares, Managers Gilmore and
Tompkins and Mr.. Springer could not
imagine themselves Offering their public
such a piece. That the audience last night
did not hiss the play off the stage, or engage
in mob demonstrations against it, was due ,
l think, to the fact that the audience was
not a representative one" Certainly it was
not. The play had two appeals-a Fictitious
appeal to prurience, and real appeal to
people OF intelligent curiosity. II there
had been any demonstration, il would have
been an outcry Of disappointment from
those who had been led to think they were
to be delighted with wickedness.
Mr. McAdoo did not expect any continued
popular interest in tho Garrick performance.
There was nothing during the evening
that could be really called applause And
he has no illusions as to the reason for this.
"The whole play to my personal view. is
revolving, indecent, nauseating, where it is
not boring There is delicate intmati on
here that the Commissioner of Police was
enlivened by its revolving indecency, bnt
we will let that pass. He makes it abun-
dainty clear that the audience did not share
his mood. In plain terms, the people who
paid S. for gallery seats and s25 for chairs
on ths parauet were most beautifully sold.
By the Commissi oner's own statement the
play must have failed, when the false and
Fictitious int crest in it was spent. Its
fate would have been precisely that Of
innlmsrable giddy farces ending with
Pinero's Wife Without Smile'-or OF
this very sa'ne piecs when it was played
in Germany The polecat is his own excuse
for being-he makes it so evident that
safety lies in fight. Truly it is to laugh
when the very reasons which the authorities
allege for interfering show so plainly that
interference was gratuitous.
aWell then Mr.. MoAdoo and his hench-
men of puritans and blacklegs may ask,
what is the harm, in adding perfume to
this poecat, especially if the result is to
bury him forever out Of reach Of the public
nostrils2 The answer is that we live, pre-
sumably in free and truth loving land,
in which even polecat specialties must have
a look in. This happens to be an intelli-
gent polecat, an artistic poecat, highly
interesting polecat, a polecat the like Of
which never ranged the wilds Of Broad
way. "Why shouldn't ] butt my head
against the wall?" cries the rebellous hero
inc OF wheels Within Wheels" 4The wall
is open to everybody, and my head is my
own!" So she butted her head and be-
came a wiser and better, If sadder, woman.
Mr.. McAdoo AYERS that some Of the scant
applause at that premier came from women
actua ted by foolish bravado.' He mis-
conceived them and maligned them as
grossly as he did the play and its actors.
The thesis at the bottom Of the whole thing
is that women have right to a livable
career, which does not involve selling them
selves to the prostitution either Of the
house of i'll fame or Of the house OF matri-
mony. Many Of our women, innocent
alike Of folly or bravado, sincerely and