The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-10-15

Anew YORK. Oct. 14-George Bernard
IL Shaw. Henrik Ibsen and Hal
Game give literature to the New
York stage this week? 1 won't invite
controversy by saying they don't
Gaines contribution is a small, yet In
teYesting concession 10 the demand for
happy ends 10 sorrowful plays. In his
novel. The Prodigal Son" the con-
trite wanderer came home. paid off a
mortgage which his profligacy had
placed on the family farm and went
away unrecogniZed into miserable ex-
piation. At the close of the drama. as
hitherto presented, the side of the
house opened to show a picture OF
snow and storm with the prodigal dis
appearing into dismal night. Game
now provides less logical but cherrier
sight for spectators to take away in
their memory. The bad son starts into
the allegOrical gloom, but his good
brother goes after him and brings MIN
back to the embrace Of his moth T
and daughter. Mrs. Leslie Carriers r.
appearance in "Zaza," recalls a SINH
lar alteration by David Belasco. In the
original French, the partially reformed
woman flung herself into the degrade
ton from which a sincere but unhappy
love had raised her. In English, she is
left clean and reasonably comfortable.
No doubt IL is discreet generally to let
the audience wipe the tears from its
eyes before quitting the theatre. yet
there are such popular exceptions as
Camille" and East Lynne" to dis
prove the rule.
George Bernard Shaw went up one
step on the stairway OF dramatic SUE
cess with Candida" and another with
Man and Superman." but he gees
down those two steps with John Bulls
Other Island" and would fall lower if
the floor from which he started were
not there to stop oh. The order had
been Issued that, after the beginning
of the first performance at exactly 4
o'clock, no one might go TO a s:at
until the act was over. Ardent Shawites
assembled gladly on time, as rural
worshippers do at prayer meetings APP
pointed for early candlelisht," and
when the curtain was raised. after ten
minutes of grace for the tardy, only a
few disobedient persons came into the
lobby. And not so many waited, fer
several departed in anger and several
disdained the ushers and made their
own way TO their places. 1t would have
been far more difficult to enforce a rue
forbidding folks to quit before the play
was over. The audience shrunk away
at the end of three acts, and when the
lobster hour of IL o'clock struck with
the play still unfinished, there was a
rapid dispersal of tired and hungry
scoffers. 1T would read Well" said a
depressed Yet still loyal Shawman, "but
won't act at ALL
This is the first Shaw play to be
performed before publication; yet the
title had told that it was Irish. FOL
John Bulls Other Island" could hard-
ly be any other than Ireland. 1t has
only one girl, an Irish heiress, who has
waited eighteen years for her boy
sweetheart, now an absentee landown-
er, to come home and marry her: but
he returned with no such desire. and she
in sorrow and anger, matches herself
with his English comrade. The whole
OF that love matter, broken into five
minutes fragments, occupies no NOR,
than half Of one Of the plays three
hours. The principal Irishman (per-
sonated by Arnold DAILY, the Shaw ac-
tor-manager), declines the Roscannan
seat in parliament, his English chun
accepts it and they disagree about II
in long dialogues. The Englishmar
wheedles the local leaders in prolonged
conferences and spellbinds the populact
in protraeted harangues. The parish
priest and his unfrocked predecessor
dispute each others opinions. An Eng
lish valet and an Irish tenant quarrel
over their points of different view. No
phase Of society. religion or politics is
omitted. And not ten I'm a thousand OF
the sentences sounds as though Shaw
wrote Il. IL seems TO me that, being
Irish. he was TO close to Irish subjects
to view them with his Irish sense OF
humOr.