The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-05-06
Gotham Hears Indifferent PLAYS
dissemination of musical
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

LdTEe.
To see the third of the actors plays
1t was necessary to go to a theatre
which the millionaire Goelets named
the Murray Hill. indicative OF swell
dom, but they located it so close to
the border line between Murray Hill
and the populoUs Hellgate section that.
after several tenants had tried in vain
to make it pay with plays appealing to
Murray Hillites. it is now thriving with
stuff TO the liking of HelIgaters. But
1t was in the air, probably blown there
by a press agent, that The Man of
Her Choice" was out of the common
run. and extraordinary by means of
thrilling third-act marvel.
While waiting for that excitement
saw that poor and pure young man
was in requited love with a fair and
fond heiress; that a vile and vicious
ScoUndrel was a rival sutton; that the
V and V fellow plundered the y and z
girls fathers safe, and fastened the
crime on the p and P chap; that up to
the middle of the play not the faintest
ray of originality cleaned in the
atmosphere which Edmond Sim
mons had created for this melo-
drama 1t seems as though an actor
when he makes a play, would for his
own selfish sake, if not for his audi
ence's SatisfactiOn-to relieve himself
if not others from the tedious mOnotony
of melOdrama-cUt the bounded hero
and his loyalty suffering sweetheart
out Of the plot, also the bounding vii
lain and his jealous mistress, and pro-
vide original substitutes, or else throw
up the job.
1t is a mistake to believe that the
sameness is good because it is time
tried and therefore sure. The sure
| thing about it is that the audience,
even if a rabble, will laugh at those
familiar situations. There is one uner-
ring test by which to tell that sort of
an audiences interest in sentimental
affair. If the gallery laughs when the
lovers kiss, you may be sure that the
sympathy This time not alone the
| gallery, but the parquet, too, was set
| laughing by the smack.
Now for the novelty that wis to lift
The Man of Her Choice" out of COM
monplace and carry it into distinction.
dent mistress, her fat caught fire, and
| the hero rescued her from death. In
the next scene she was in Bellevue hos
| pital and likely to die of her burns.
| She had the stolen bonds under her
pillow. The villain choked her to get
! them, and was thrown out by the hero,
/ to whom she gave the fateful papers.
! But If she were to die without telling
how he had come by them, he would be
convicted as thief, don't you see? and
/ the physician said she probably would
never speak again.
| Her only chance of life" he re-
marks, lis in grating skin from some
! other person on the place where her
! submit to torture for this friendless
/ Creature?'
| 4 will cries the heroine
! The surgeon lays out his implements.
/ Two nurses bring lint and bandages.
! The unconscious patient lies on a cot
| with her sore side showing red through
/ her thin robe.
/ You will take an anaesthetic?' says
! the surgeon to the heroine.
No" the brave girl replies: Il Will
( bear the pain for the man Of my
| choice"
The logic of that is shaky, but the
/ theatrical reason is sound, for if she
[ isn't consciously tortured. where viii
l looks well for the play Then sud
! denly it does not. The author has got
himself into a dilemma that he CAM
get out of. The girl resolutely strips
/ off the waist of her dress, strikes a
pose of desperate courage and says: Il
/ am ready" Now, everyone knows that
/ being a fashionabl belle, she wOuldn'1
| be blemished by so much as a vaccina-
! ton mark anywhere that decollette
/ gown would show, so long as she had
other places for il; yet she stretches
out her arm to have some skin cut of
! and it is A very pretty arm to sen
/ tence to solitary confinement in e
/ sleeve for life for a good deed. OF
] course, it is too much to expect her to
uncover hip, or the small of her back
/ with the whole side of the hospital ward
/ open to a theatre full of spectators.
| don't know that they want her TO. Yet
/ something as remarkable as that is
| needed to save the situation. The cir
! in a corset cover ceases to be melo-
l dramatic, the tension relaXes, the grip
lets go and the climax falls to pieces
/ It is of no use that the surgeon plies
! his scalpel and pincers, or that the suf-
feref~ writhes in pain, or that her arm
/ is copiousIy bloodied. The audience
! laughs as the curtain goes down. Play
/ making is a difficult trade
LEhnro r,-as y r1aisundarsta nding about