The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-04-18
uTHESTUENGTH OFTHE WEAK"
SBOUN BY FLORENCE ROBERTS
AND TWO LADY PLAYWRIGHTS,
Is No Greater Than II Should BE, Though an
interesting and In Many Ways Able EX-
perlment-A Problem Play without
n Problem-An Emotional Actress.

nerIment-A Problem Play without
a Problem-An Emotional Actress.
Az an experiment, The Strength of
the Weak in which Miss Florence Roberts
last night made her bid for metropolitan
annroyal at the Liberty, is interesting
and in many ways able; but both as regards
the work of the actress and her two lady
nlayyrights, it is to be feared that it Is
not altogether successful.
The play is what used to be described,
iuaccurately enough, as a problem play,
and it centres in the usual strongly emo
uonal feminine role. A girl in her youth
and innocence has been seduced by a much
older man, and the adherence of her sin
has aroused in her the full measure of her
.olI. She educates herself at a woman 3
college, and determines to triumph over
her past. Winning the love Of a rather
fine and generous Young man. she confesses
everything to him. After a struggle he
;orgives her and promises to marry her.
But as it happens he turns out to be the
a1n of the seducer-and discovering this,
she kills herself.
Against such themes in the drama we
nave as a people a strong pre- judice, which
is no doubt stupid enough, even provincial
But a great man. who by no means shared
This prejudice, once made q remark which
i-applicable to the new piece at the Liberty.
Anartist has no right Goethe said, to produce
an impression Of pain which has not also
It's attendant and compromising spiritua
reaction. Aristotle himself, nurtured on
.ome pretty stiff tragic stories, defined the
function of tragedy as a publication. Now,
precisely what THE Strength Of the Weak"
most lacks Is this touch OF spiritual re-
action and publication. 1t ia written with
much Cleverness in dialo que, and with a
REVEALING sense of reality in spite of much
that is conventionally theatric, but it be-
gins in the horror of sin and ends in mere
despair.
The simple fact is-ungracious though
it be to say so-that the trail of the feminine
mind is over it all. Many Of the lines are
bright, and some of them are brilliant.
There are flashes of rare intuition in char
aCter drawing, and here and there and
effective dramatic situation OF the tconven-
tional order, But all this is mere millinery
and modiStery.
The effect of the moment is often gained
at the expense of simple truth. And there
is no trace of the rigid constructive intel
lect which alone llIStiies such a searching
Of the murky depths Of human existence:
And the whole was swamped in oceans OF
dllIlltSS dIl tilultSS Nalh NiioNSSi "''NN
the foibles of a moment, and chatter about
passion and destiny. of the ~loquacious
charm Of the weak there is abundance; but
Of real strength there is nothing. ,
Miss Roberts is an actress OF no little
intelligence and emotional power. Her
defect is that her methods and manner
seem a mere replica of those of Mrs. Fiske;
There were times when one actually seemed
to be at the Manhattan. She has, 1t Is true,
some of Mrs. Fishes histrionic intelligence
and poignant realism OF emotion; huI
for the most part her manner is dominated
by the lack of subtlety, the positive OBJ
viousness, which is associated with the art
Of the road.
Much OF her mimique is aimed point
blank at the audience, and expresses things
directly which in life are at most only suR-
gested. She does not rant or stride, but
nonetheless she lacks the power Of fluent,
subtle and sustained effect. When, as con-
stantly happens, a dramatic passage strays
into aimless verbiage, she lacked the rover
to infuse it with vitality.
Tyrone Power lent to the part of the mid
die aged seducer a certain solidity which
IL did not in itself possess. As the young
lover Eugene Ormonde was simple, re
strained and generously manly, but with
out personal charm. IS a dramatically
needless young william F.. S. Northrnp was
~incisive and, in spite of a certain exaggera-
ton of method, prevailingly real. Max
tigman did wonder with the chara cter
comedy Of a German Raron in love with a
young American madcap,
As an elderly vulgarian and malaprop
Florence Robinson had a few effective
moments: and as an athletic and downright
sweet girl graduate, Ruth Allen won the
plaudits of a friendly house. Most of the
applause, in fact, was manifestly partisan.
The scenery was elaborate-so elaborate,
in fact, that the apartments OF the heroine
struggling to support herself by her pen,
could scarcely have been inadequate to an
heiress. The stage management was elab-
oratelv detailed and carefully rehearsed.