The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-11-04
THEATRICAL LETTER
 FROM FRANKLIN FILES

New York Nov. 2.-Three opponents of modern dramatic art at its London best have just presented themselves In New York with three very unusuai plays Anglomania. once onensive is by-gone now. There is no tndis- criminate acceptance of English things on account of their origin. That Lena Ashwell, Forbes Robertson and Henry B. Irving come from approvai over there has no more to do with ther welcome than it ought to.
 The lady stranger among them. Lena Ashwell, was not helped to London re- nown by beauty. She may have been pretty when a girl. but not possibly beautiful At present she is comedy woman, with an almost handsome race and a tall, pliant figure. Her own nark hair is unbleached. and her visagc Is not colored more than to produce the effect of a natural complexion under stage lighting. Upon her entrance she .ioes not look like an actress. but youngish woman in a state or Senu- ineness. Her voice in it's first words to a New York audience sounded harsh and metallic, but that came of nervous ness evidently, for very quickly it was toned agreeably to the utterance of a trained English speaker, which is as devoid of cockney accent as of Yankee twang.
 Miss Ashwell has not said much be- fore you forget to think of her elocu- tion, and listen eagerly for what she is saying, with no regard for how she says it. Just as Clara Morris used to thrill you, so this actress sends her voice straight to your heart with what ever message it has to convey. She knows the theatrical tricks, but does not display them openly. If she came to America at twenty with the skill which has taken her till forty to &C., quire, audiences would go wild with enthusiasm over her. Not that she is a genius but she is gifted and if she were as young as the girl she as- sumes to be in the play, she might arouse us as Clara Morris did with un- theatric emotionalism.
 The drama chosen for the American debut of Miss Ashwell. The Shula- mite" is boldly original and startlingly peculiar A rich old Boer farmer has taken for d second wife young girl to whom, in his admiration he applies the Biblical description of the beautiful Shulamite woman; but he is a grim re- ligionist, and d believer in the Scrip tGraf injunction that wives should obey their husbands; also. in the sacred as- sertion 1t is Godly to chasten those we love; and for "chasten' here reads "chastise" whom his beloved bride is disobedient Deborah has borne Dom Simeon's whip meekly. as South Afri- can wives do. but now Robert, the young superintendent of the farm, teaches her the shame and degradation of such usage.
 So when Dom Simeon comes at her again with rawhide she is determined not to take the strokes. But how avoid them? sudden idea comes to her. She knows that he has prayed tc, God that. es Abraham became father at a hundred and four, so he at sixtytve CT thcreabouts may beget child by his bride. On the impulse Deborah tells him that she is in a way to yield him offspring That is a lie, but he be- lieves it joyously, and becomes kird to the wife where before he was cruel.
 It is said that. in d weeks practice with The Shulamite" before bringing it to Broadway, young Deborahs false promise of baby, and old Simeon's glee thereat were taken as a joke that was all the funnier for being Intimate and obstetric. That foreboded the fiasco of an emotionally planned dra- ma. It's authors, Claude Askew and Edward Knoblauch. would have been depressed if present. But the first Go tham audience would have uplifted them, for, while it was not rapturous over the plays oddity. there was no disposition towards levity. Deborah's false promise of progeny is the pivotal point in plot melodramatic that 1t contains Dom Simeons attempt to in- fict a death penalty when he learns she has lied. and the killing of him by Robert in defense of her. No one can complain of conventionality in this play.
 There is so much singuarity in "Cae- sar and Cleopatra" that Forbes Rob-