The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-18
REALISM IN 1.-THE THREE OF Us"
DOMESTIC DRAMA IN A NEVADA
MINING CAMP.
Rachel CrOtherS Removes the Fourth Wall
From Three Commonplace Rooms and
Paints the Life In Them with Unusual
Sympathy and Truth -CarIotta Nilsson.

Paints the Lie In Them with Unusual
sympathy and Truth-CarIOtta Nilsson.
Fidelity to the unaffected truth Of daily
life has seldom been carried to greater
lengths than IL was last night at the Madison
Square in The Three Of Us Miss Rachel
Crothers, who wrote the play, George
FostepPlatt, who produced IL. and Miss Car
lotta Nilsson, who acted it, backed by an
able company, left no flaw in the perform
ance, or almost none.
The story was one OF domestic life In
a Nevada mining camp. There were no
red shirts and no whiskey-or at most an
Eastern highball. There we're no shooting
irons and no swishing c haps. There was
local color in its place; but things happened
essentially as they might here or almost
anywhere. The fourth wall was removed
from three commonplace rooms, tenanted
by commonplace people, and one saw them
live out their lives quietly, yet with the
pulse OF actually, and at ines the throb
of tense emotion.
In its outlines the story was bare and
trite enough. There was a heroine and
two rivals for her love. who were also rivals
in financing certain mines. The heroine's
young brother, an ambitious and unprln-
cipled whelp, eavesdrOpped Tor a business
secret, and sold II to n Of the lovers,
who somewhat basely used it for financial
gain and TO compromise the girl, with the
hope of winning her. But the ovCrtOne
OF the action was a revelation OF character
and impulse very far from bare and trite.
One felt the very pinch Of poverty and
the corrosion of hope deferred. There
were moments of love and joyful anticipa-
ton, followed by Illustration, doubt, mis-
understanding, d%istrust, recrimlnation. The
more evil of the lovers had moments OF
manly strength and the more honest mo-
ments Of the weakness of disappointment
and anger. The heroine, Rhy Mdcchesney,
was a girl Of flesh and blood sympathetic,
wise and unselfsh TO the core. loyal to her
word, though i'll advisedly given, indie
pendent in action, and, IN the dramatlc
scene Of the third act, heroic in indepen-
denoe.
That is a good deal to say. There are
those for whom il will be everything. Mr..
Howells, and many Of his way OF thinking,
would, and, il is to be hoped, will delight in
the play. But the fact remains that it lacks
the larger appeal which somehow or other
is a part Of the art of the drama. IL is as
austerely simple and as bravely true as
THE Great Divide" But its characters and
situatious lack range and calibrc. The
mood in which il Is written is not a mood
Of might, and the ideas involved seldom
transcend the parochial.
At most a single passage reveals orlgl-
nality and strength. Rhg, put In the wrong
with her lover by her promise to his rival,
comes t. the rivals rooms and demands
release from her word. The man of her
heart surprises her there. IL is the old
familiar scene. but Miss Crothers treats it
with an independence which is strikingly,
in fact, somewhat consciously at variance
with a rather dead tradition. Rhy refuses
TO admit that the situation compromises
her and when the two men contend for the
right to shield her she proudly turns on them
both and stands firm In her own strength OF
~womanhood. The scene looked applause
and deserved IT,.
Miss Nilsson played her part with the
reality and impassloned ferVor which have
made her one OF the foremost of our emo
tional actresses. Eva Vincent was adj
mirable as always in the role OF an Irish
servant. Frederic Truesdell and Henry
Kolker az the warning lovers were capable
If un~distinguished. Stanley Dark as an
English resident of Nevada and Jane Pey-
ton as his wife gave a welcome touch OF
lighter character. The desperate young
brother was we'll played by John Wesley.