The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-02-18

others esteem the better minds of
America gathered to see the first per-
Torrance in New York of THE Duel"
and applauded immoderately. Persons
whose clothes were of better make
than their minds Joined in to make the
occasion noisy. So this drama from
Paris started here under favorable con-
ditions. You see, Henri Lavedan had
written it for the Coincide Francois,
where LeBargy and Nine Bartet had
the roles here given to Otis Skinner
and Fay Davis. Doubters, therefore,
felt safe to show delight in this pro-
found play, for they were pretty sure
they were doing the correct thing in
these days when il really is fashion
able to think. In a season wherein
Bernard Shaw's and James NJ. Barrie's
keen mentalities have cashed up profit
ably in Broadway theatres, however,
one cannot foretell the fate of a work
so somberly serious in it's excellence as
THE Duel"
Roman Catholicism and agnosticism
are in this drama pitted against each
other, as personified by two men. and
the object for which they duel to pos
sess is embodied in a woman. The
fight is not an affair of pistols or
swords, quickly final, but the three in
dividuaIs contend in arguments for
three eventless acts. An old mission
y.
bOlical of common sense, is a fourth
person concerned, but he has small
weight in the proceedings The case
given is that OF a wife who loves the
great man of science, who has tempo
rarily cured her husband of drug and
drink habits But she keeps her pas
sion a secret until he reveals himself
! in a plea to be accepted as her lover.
That ends the first act with an apos-
trophe, not a catastrophe; for she
breaks an appointment for hason
and spends the second act with a de-
vOut priest. who is the physician
brother. The priest fears during the
| third act that his interest in the woman
/ is carnal, and he banishes himself to
a distant leper colony. 1t becomes
| known that the husband, relapsed into
| inebriety, is killed by a fall from a
window. The play ends with another
| apOstTOphe seeming to mean that in
1 time the widow may marry the med
| zeal agnOStic. That is the full OF the
| plot that the better minds of America
| applauded and that even the ordinary
run of first-nighters cheered.
! There is no action whatsoever. Not
| a thought by occurrence True to the
modern French idea of construction,
/ the play is a series of dialogues, each
! character starting with a minute &C
| count of his life from childhood, de-
| failing at every re-entrance the
/ thoughts he has had while absent, and
/ finally mapping out the rest of his
/ earthly existence in a defamation to
I whoever will listen
! Beyond a doubt Charles FrOhman en-
! joys doing costly things for the sake
/ of art with little or no chance of any
money reward. And THE DueP' surely
/ is dramatic art and literature with its
! expositions of Christian faith and I'M
/ !, Of hTI-
man passion and its uplifting conflict
of lofty minds Mr.. Frohman has
! deemed it worthy of his best attention.
/ He has imported a Coincide Francois
/ and done his utmost to reproduce the
| original excellence. Otis Skinner, Fay
/ Davis, Eben PlymptOn and Guy Stand
/ ing have the important roles. In seen
cry the French models have been ex-
actly duplicated and two Of the in
! teriors are marvels of artistic beauty.
/ There is no affectation in thanking
| Mr. FrOhman for The Duel as an
! example of modern drama at the
| French national theatre, nor anything
| hystericaI in the applause of his I'M
| commercial purpose.
George NJ. Conan has made the whole
show of George Washington, Jr-," and
he performs most of it, personally and
| by proxy For when his assistants are
doing things of his devising the re-
| sembIance to him is so marked that
the entertainment is CohaniZed COM
| pIetely George is his own original
| Joke. and people who can't laugh when
he cracks himself should stay away,
for he is very cruel joke to those who
don't see the point of him. The first
| audience for his new play seemed to
be COhanians exclusively l wouldn't
have been astOnished if the Cohaniza-
ton had, after making every person on
the stage an imitator of Conan, so af-
fected the people in the auditorium as
to send them dancing up the aisles like
/ Conan at the dispersal, instead of
merely singing his new patriotic song
to the music with which the orchestra
played them out of the theatre. THE
Grand Old Rag" is a tricky rouser of
patriotism. made by blending the airs
/ of MY Country. 'Tis of Thee" Yam
kee Doodle" Dixie" and Aud Lang
Syne." Veterans of the Civil war are
on a visit to Mount Vernon. Their
/ wigs and boards Of gray fit them as
| neatly as their coats of blue, and they
march with a swing that looks like a
/ triumph of age over rheumatism.
Cohan takes their tattered flag, that
dear old rag" drum majors with ii
as their leader, and makes the audi
ence feel itself included In the old war
time ACQUAINTANCE which, as the mimic
old soldiers declare in a chorus, snail
never be forgot. Young Conan knows
his business.
please don't take me seriously" he
said through his nose, while he ducked
and sidestepped in the manner SO
easily copied by the mimics, after he
had brought the act to such an enthu-
siastic climax Il don't pretend to be
much Of a comedian or playwright, and
if 1 amuse you, it is all I aspire to do. y
That was the shTewd thing to say
for il was a thing which the audience
might think for itself. But COhan
must know that he is a genius In his
way. else he couldn't make such shows
unaided as usually require a collabora-
ton of humorists, rhymesters, must
clans and producers. The fact is that
Cohan has an ambition to write serious
dramas, and that he has curbed II
more in George Washington, Jr.,
than in his preceding two plays. By
sticking to this work that he does sc
well, making and marketing his OWL
material, he should become the richest