The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-11-25

service as a InectilS Oh plqudHcy lOucHeu
lightly by sentiment. In Merely Mary
Ann" she was a London Slavey who
became cultured lady. in Nurse Mar
jorie" she was a titled lady who for
| trick served as A cook in a restaurant,
and now III Susan in Search of a Hus-
band she is well-bred wife who be-
| comes a chambernaid in hotel. James
X Jerome wrote a short story of an
| American Susan who, at the end of
seven years search for her truant hus-
band, finds him at a Welsh inn where
! she has hired out as a servant, and he,
! in the assumed character of an English
| lord, is wooing an heiress. The girls
| change places, and the husband, failing
/ to recognize his wife, gets to loving her
/ sincerely. Jerome made a one-aet play
of his sketch and Eugene Presbrey
| heightened it for Miss Robson TO use.
1t is rather more farce than a COM
edy. with much humor and little So
! briefly.
That a play "of words and not deeds
need not verify the adage by being
like a garden full Of weeds" is shown
| by THE New York Idea" comedy of
much talk and little motion. There is
/ but one reason why l don't like il: it
contains no separate episode to give an
| account of; and after writing that ii is
a comedy of wit equal to Bernard
! Shaw's wittiest, and play of smart
/ society on a par with Clyde Fitch's
smartest, there seems to be little mat
ter left for description.
| 1t must be a satisfaction to have at
/ tatned. as player, vogue which, as
i'm the case of Mrs. Fiske. she may
| choose any kind of a role that she
cares to put herself into, and not be
| scared by any risk that audiences won't
give full consideration to her. Last
| season she was a thief's regenerate
1 daughter in Leah KIesna;" next be-
| fore that she was the repentant sinner
| in Mary of Magdala;" and for years
and years her public was accustomed to
getting serious drama at her hands;
yet she could say to herself: 81 once
had some relaxing fun in 'Divorcons' as
a wife who knotted herself anew with
an united husband, and now I will ease
up from tragedy and melodrama to
jocose comedy of comical divorce which
DIR. S. Weir Mitchell's son Langdon has
written for me. My public won't let
me? Oh, yes 1t will" And it does An
audience mixedly fashionable and Gull
| tured accepted 1.-THE New York Idea"
| from her without hesitation. although it
contrasted sharply withseverything she
had introduced within decade.
|
l COitSa NSSllialt Mlle, VINO Is
Banker Clews' daughter. and a young
matrOn in an upper layer of our smart
society, has published a book-which
the clergy has kindly denounced-in
advocacy of probationary wedlock ter
minable at will. Langdon Mitchelrs
comedy goes quite as far as that-but
not with a problematic or reformatory
purpose apparent-in representing mar
riage as very transitory among idle
Org In Ire LNsCI-
stands for a divorcee who is a modish
belle. a turf sport. a bully-boyish wo-
man with a red-haired temper; a tri-
vial quarrel has led her to get a Da-
kota separation from really compat-
IDLE husband; and at the beginning of
| the play her marriage to an altogether
uncongenially slow and heavy Judge is
dated for the ensuing day. This pros
pectiye bridegroom has lately divorced
himself from a gay young wife, and
| the four freed persons proceed to COM
plicate themselves intricately with one
another, and to talk about it so wittily
! that the play contains matrimonial
| jokes and epigrama enough to fill a
| laughter column in a newspaper for a
week. The only trace of seriousness is
that the principal disunited two don't
get clear of their mutual love and jeaI-
ousy, and are delighted when, at the
end, their decree of divorce is pro-
nounced INVALID.
Clean as we'll as bright is ''The New
| York Idea While il illustrates the
lOOseness Of marriage bonds, it has no
violation of the anti-vice command
ment. One of the divorces is for in
compatibility and the other for deser-
ton. Mrs. Fiske is as Eighty as she
used to be in "Featherbrain." and rs
| lmpulsiYe as she was i'm 'Dfvorcons
She slips off with a jolly admirer i'm
the afternoon to see her former hus-
| bands horse run in race and gets
back in the evening too late for her
wedding with the grave Judge, Then
she runs away from the proposed GER
emony to her separated husband to stop
him from marrying her impending hus-
bands now unfettered wife. Yet there
isn't forbidden kiss in the whole af-
bfalr-not so much as a roguish quicker
| of the lips-until the final. coniuEaI re-
sumption between the divorced but new
er quite discovered lovers. I am sorry
II thls account of The New York
| Idea indicates a mOnOtonous or I'M
arousing play; but it would take a col
umn of quotations to show why its wit
| tiness and Whimsicality make it a rare
! entertainment; and who knows that
| Mr.. Mitchell wouldn't bring an action
at law for the publication of his copy
righted originalities?
4
The circumstances attendant upon the
| first performance in New York of
! Charles Klein's drama of 1.-The Lion
and the Mouse" a year ago. were ex-
actly reversed in the presentation of his
| latest work, THE Daughters of Men,"
this week. Then, in spite of his con-
siderable prosperity as a playwright,
the public's attitude toward him
largely due to his own modest inclina-
ton to let collaborators take credit for
his share of the merits-was one of the
! you've got to show u.s. variety. THE
Daughters of Men" on the contrary.
comes as the natural companion piece
| to the drama which used-or purported
to use-Rockefeller millionaireism as a
problem theme; so the new play is a
! foregone success unless it proves itself
a failure. That it is good enough to
entertain the people who go to it. not
because of its own reputation. but be-
cause 1t is the successor to the other
| piece. seems sure.
Labor versus capital here serves
the purpose that Standard Oil, John ID.
Rockefeller and Ida NJ. Tarbell served
| so remunerativeiy for Mr. Klein i'm the