The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-10-29
'SquawMan and MonnaV Wanna


New York. Oct 27-Solid substance
is not scant in Norma VIENNA" or
The Squaw Man" the dramas hew
here. Both are virile and vital, in
tensely human in feeling, sufficiently
purposeful in ethics and popularity en-
crossing. And I don't think it is un-
fairly patriotic to say that Edwin Mil
ton Royle the Americans play is as
| literary as Maurice Maeterlinck, the
Belsian's, although one man is cosno-
politan celebrity for isn't the graphic
/ depletion Of character and conduct
/ literature? A native dramatist writes
! against prejudice anyway. and when
his play is Of the Wild West il is COM
monty rated down below erudite con-
sideration. Royle couldn't make The
] Squaw Man" in manuscript look good
+ TO any manager who had won out in
the Show gamble enough dough 20
make a pudding. | am phrasing it
commercially, understand. SO he de-
cided to hold out card in new deal
for bluff. He added a few words of
start and finish TO the third act and
/ had ii produced at Lambs gambol
/ as a complete work. That trick has
saved him the game. though tardily,
/ for it is after two years that the en-
tire thing gets on the stage.
/ That third act still contains the
moral problem which distinguishes
The SQuaw Man" from the ordinary
cowboy NnelOdTama. \ young English
aristOcrat and army captain has ex-
lied himself to Utah and become a
rancheT An Indian chiefs daughter
has saved his life by shooting the
desperate who would have killed him,
! again by hauling him into camp from
a blizzard, and still again by nursing
! him through a fever.
II am human being" he says. in
his account of their intimacy. and the
human thing happened. But I couldn't
let my child be born nameless and 80
married the mother. That is why
am that creature despised hereabouts-
a squaw man."
+ Such is his status when his family's
solicitor brings word that he may go
home TO an earldOm. Now. his squaw
is no ideal savage, She is neither
young nor pretty. and her mind is too
small TO hold more than an instructive
love Of Jim and Hal. her husband and
3
wife, but is heartbound to his little
son. What shall he do? He longs for
/ London, where the forbidden sweet
4 heart of his earlier years is now a
widow countess He viii remain with
an uncOngenial SquaW. But has he
the right to keep his child away from
heritage of title and estate? 1t viii
break his heart to part with the boy,
but his sense of duty demands the
sacrifice. The man who might go and
be an earl feels in honor bound to stay
and be "A squaW man.
But for that problem i'm ethics 10
dignity it. THE Squaw Man" would
be no better than the average of excel
lence established collectively by "The
Nirsinian." The Cowboy and the
Lady" THE Heir TO the HOorah,"
Sunday, Ranch 10" and Arizona f"
It repeats in the one way that I have
described The action begins in Eng
! land among aristocrats and passes
| next TO Rocky Mountain barro0m,
t where the guzzling, gambling and
cunning are Of the grimly humorous
kind familiar in fiction. and ] can't
gainsay that if is faithful realism: but
we have seen it staged so many times
that it can't rouse US any more. And
the story ends with the easy device of
having the suuaw kill herself out of
/ the earls way. Yet altogether II is
! an extra strong drama admirably
acted by William Faversham and 9th
ers.
/ The iimelight ought to fall on the
author, Faversham said in his thank
( YOU 10 the first audience, and I quote
I 1t as unlike the usual star actors
utterance. He wrote this play-we are
merely performing it,"
Few plays in New York season re-
ceiVe anything like the preliminary at
tention that interested our public in
Norma Wanna" for several years be-
fore its first performance in English
this week. The more literary folk
would, in any case, have read and dis
cussed il because it came from Maurice
Maeteriinck, the Belgian poet, whose
ability some rate as high as greatness
ana some as below imaginative COM
potency. But the holiness of this
drama s theme. centering i'm its mate
rial detail on the visit of a woman,
naked but for mantle, to the tent of
{ lustful warrior, sent its fame far be-
yond literary and artistic boundaries.
Battles OF words We're fought over the
question Of morality, the chief encoun-
! CHAMBERLAIN refused 10 permit a per-
ter occurring in London when the Lord
I Iormance. ThereuDOn some conspicu-
Gus writer's, headed and melted by
! George Moore, Henry Jones, Lawrence
| Irving and Mrs. Cragie, formed a SUBJ
scription society for a private repre-
sentation. This was nearly four years
ago. The ado led a couple of women.
who had failed with a burlesque thea
ire, 10 seize on the thoroughly adver-
| tlsed drama to recOup their losses. But
f=fr =
production here she was suspected Of
no such uncomfortable motive And
after consideration she decided that the
role OF Wanna did not suit her PERSONAL
| ity. So at length she has put it on her
stage with Bertha Kalish. the lauded
Yiddish actress, playing the heroine in
English
Interest ran high at the first perform
ance, which was given before an unusu-
ally cultured audience II would be
avoiding the truth if l did not recall
that. in the atmosphere of respectful re-
gard for masterpiece that had been
acclaimed throughout Europe, there
was also an electric current of expeeta-
ton of indecency. What the searchers
for literature saw was a story of uplift-
ing significance, simple in it's Symbol
lism, exalted in its purpose and unfold
ed in long poetic speeches, which had
been translated into pat English by
John Severance from the French in
which Maeterlinck had written them.
Told in a few uninspired sentences. the
tale begins with a lord of ancient Pisa's
despair at the conquest of his city by
E1orentines, and by their leaders
shocking offer 10 spare the vanquished
from defilation and death If Gismonda
will come 10 his tent. rObed In a mantle
only She does that in the exalted res
ignatiOn Of a martyr and TO the horror
of her husband When she delivers
herself at midnight the holiness of her
sacrifice so impresses the warrior that
he sends her back at dawn, unsullied
hV even the inunh Of his hand Pnt I,nr