The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-11-12
MAUDE ADAMS NEW PLAY
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

~ ~ SA9N2S anu N4ld4 III CtlApcA lui
Peter Pan" a success which i
could not achieve in New York without
them; for the play is such delicate
whim and fantasy that the Broadway
theatric glare might readily seoreh it
1 may as well say roast it-instead of
genially warming and llluming. l might
he hanged on the spot if l were TO tell
fashionable Empire Theatre audience
that its perception OF intellectual quail
ity in new play is less acute than that
OF people who support correspondingly
nodlsh dramatic houses in London
Paris or Berlin; but il is safe to say 81
10 readers at the distance of salt Lake
The very truth is that Peter Pans
Monday night audience, after adniring
and enjoying Miss Adams, dispersed IN
i daZe as 10 the play. and didn't dare
to make up it's mind about it until
Tuesday mornings journals pronounced
1t good literature. Oh, am a born and
bred New Yorker, but-and But with q
capital Is.
Three plays i'll the extravaganza
class. yet each different from the 9TH
ers, were brought To New York from
London simultaneously. Two were of
familiar kinds, The White Cat" and
The Earl and the Girl" and were ac-
cepted indiscriminately; but Peter
Pan" was so odd that no wonder its
merit was doubted by a thousand in
the fourteen hundred who enjoyed its
initial performance. If it had been J.
ii Barrie's earliest instead of his latest
composition, and if he hadn't written
The Little Minister for Miss Adams,
1t would never have reached US at the
hands OF that actress
Barrie sent mis- maiden effort in stage
craft to me-" said Sir Henry Irving.
during his last visit, IL was The Pro-
fessOr's Love Story in very bad hand
writing, and il l hadn't known the
author [ wouldn't nave worked my way
through it. l ached 10 act the Profess
scr, but the comedy wasn't big enough
for the stage Of my Lyceum; so sent
it to John Hare, telling him it was q
good thing for his Garrick. Hare re-
turned IL with the message that he was
an old man and his time was too short
to decipher such a manuscript as that,
Then I sent it to L. S. Willard, who put
it to the good by about twenty thou
sand OF your dollars in one season"
You speak in rather commercial
terms" I remarked.
Sir HenTy's eye tWinkled with the re-
Spouse: My dear fellow, art starves
when it isn't fed"
To come back to Peter Pan" il is no
aspersion upon Charles Frollman's acu-
men to believe that, but for his pre-
Vious successes with Barrie plays he
wouldn't have read beyond the first act;
even In iegibie tyDewriting, and that
he wouldn't have placed Maude Adams
in 1t but for his reliance upon her
genius and vogue to authorize it's fanci-
ful absurdities. You may have read
that Peter Pan was hoy who wouldn't
grow up, but became the master of s.
colony of Maynard lads in a fairy for
est; that he made a London households
children to fly away to that retreat;
and that he and they had adventures
as strange as Alice's in Wonderland
Such tales in books fascinate our
youngsters, and as given in burlesques
they have frequently amused adults.
But IN this case the undertaking was
TO make effectual stage use in d dainty
comedy, OF a boy seemingly limited to
travesty, like Jack of the Beanstalk
and Aladdin Of the Lamp. In my apin-
ion no other actress than Miss Adams
could have done ii, No great ingenuity
was needed by Barrie TO send Peter fly
ing through the air in exploits suffi-
clent in number to fill a Christmas
book; but think of the versatility of the
actress who, having distinguished her
self in the tragedy of Juliet. The nlelo-
drama of the second Bonaparte, the
comedy Of the mischievous Babbie and
other extremes in legitimate acting,
now sings, dances and jokes I'm the
manner of the burlesquers, equalling
the most expert of them in the usual
things that they do and additionally so
idealiZing those things that they be-
come exquisite dramatic art? Peter
Pan" is tho most peculiar show in
many a year.
The London Christmas pantomire Of
The White Cat is thoroughly New
Worked into an extravaganza as pre-
scented here. The scenery gorgeous and
the costumes resplendent are brought
over as they We're; the fairy tale OF a
princess transformed into a white cat
is retained and so are the SPECTACULAR
ballets; but much of the matter for the
comedians has been rewritten and all
Of the specialized songs have been
made by various native experts. There
would be scant entertainment for
Americans but for the elm nation OF
foreign stuff and the substitution of do
Drury Lane ANIMALS were deemed
worthless for. importation, but since
1898 they have been made over profit
ably for the Yankee market.
What things were taken out Of The
White Cat I don't know, but / do
know that the oldest thing left ina
thing that Will haunt me in my night
mares-is an ape that develops into a
man. He begins in an ordinary way
as one Of those beasts which. with an
acrobat inside their skins. abound i'm
eXtraVaganZas. He is called Simeon,
because he is n Simian. and his capers
al the outset are less funny than those
Of a donkey that plays with him. |
looked in the bill to find that the per-
former was Hugh Ward, and ! won
dered why some one Of the several
adopts in that kind OF work had not
been hired for these monkeyshines. The
reason for choosing more than a mere
pant0mimist became apparent, for ST.
neon is a dramatiZation of Darwin
theory that mans progenitOr was the
ape-a stage PRESERVATION of ''the miss
ing link" In the first act he is a
crouching, chatter.ng brute: in the sec
Ond he stands erect, cvinces human in
stincts and tried to utter words; IN the
third he becomes q caricature of q To-
quacious English dandy.
This Simeon the Simian is a gro
tesque figure. How much more his au-
thor meant him to be-is not clear. But
as embodied by a clever actor he is a
weird study in human mOnstrosity. His
metamorphosis from . hairy ourang-
outang 10 well-groomed fOp is shown
tasetiously, yet 10 me the grotesque
fancy becomes a fascinating possibility.
When he is a half-and-half state he
revisfts the jungle of his infancy, meets
his monkey parents and has a gambOl
with them. but they are muteiy bewii-
dered by the change in him. Further
along in his transformation he takes ia
cigarettes and highballs, 10 billiards
and golf. 10 flirting with an aged fairy
and marrying her. By that time he is
almost a human being, but not quite.
and his face still bears a slight resem-