Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-30
T he Foreign S tage
pecial From a Star Correspondent.

Special From a Stan Correspondent
LONDON, September 23-Once IN a de-
| cade or so some author who knows, or else
cares, little about the conventions. tradi-
| tons and superstitions of playwriting,
| turns out a play that is all the better for
| the authors disregard OF these fetishes;
| and once in a blue moon such play
| gets accepted by venturesome manager.
| That is what has happened, apparently, in
| the case of Mrs. de la Pastures dramatiza-
| ton of her novel Peters Mother Doubt
| less most of the London critics busy
pointing out to this fortunate author where
| in she has failed to obey the accepted rules.
! but no one who saw the first performance of
| Peters Mother at Wyndham's Wednes-
day evening could doubt its appeal to the
| audience, Notwithstanding the fact that 1t
is play of sentiment rather than action,
and that it pictures narrow, decorous life
in which the storm and stress usually sup
posed to be necessary to drama con-
spicuous by their absence.
One need not have read the novel m or
der to follow the pay. 1t is the simple
story of d charming woman well on the
younger side of forty who had married at
seventeen stiff pg-headed baronet TWEEN
| ty years her senior. She was made for love
and happiness, but has walked pr.mly and
obedently in narrow and unlovable path
of duty, hectored by her husbands aged
sisters, and forever suppressed and lectured
| by that worthy himself He has never
conflded in her, and when the play opens
We find him stoically arranging to keep
| her in ignornce of an operation he is to
| undergo on the morrow, and from which It
| is not likely that he will recover. 1t is at
| the time of the Boer war, to which the old
| baronet is bitterly opposed. In what proves
| to be his last evening alive word comes
| that his only boy Peter. has run away
| from Eton and enlisted. He is to sail next
| morning His mother would fly to him; his
| father commands her to stay; she rebels,
| for almost the first time in her life. Her
| cousin, a famous lawyer, who has been
| called down to make the baronet's will and
| prepare for eventualities. intervenes and
| tells her the truth about the coming opera
| ton. The struggle between duty and ma
| ternal love is strong, but duty comes out
| ahead and Peters mother stays at home.
| In the second act, two years later, Peter
| returns with his right sleeve empty. He
| proves to be a chip ofNthe old block, and
| his tender mothers overwhelming Joy at
seeing him again is quickly turned to tears.
She had become betrothed TO her cousin.
| the lawyer, and love and beauty had come
| into her life for the first time; but all this
| must be surrendered. for Peter takes 1t
| for granted that she will devote herself
! exclusively to him and she meekly submits.
| Eventually, however that stubborn young
| cub. Peter, who is made lovable in spite of
his selfishness, is tanned by the captivating
daughter of a neighboring family and
| Peters mother is at last released from
| bondage
|
| full outline is in noting from what thin ma.
| terial a really charming play can be made
providing the author has shrewd and
| kindly humor, the true instinct for portray
ing character, and the genius to picture life
| without the exaggeration usually deemed
necessary for effects that will carry across
! the footlights" and yet with such sympathy
| that the mild and tender gr.efs and joys OF
| her heroine are shared in equal measure
| by the audience.
Mrs. de la Pasture was fortunate indeed,
I l,t1 30
| that wholly delight Il actress Marion Ter
| ~, who has been long overshadowed
by her more famous sister and whom Lon
| don really began to discover only four or
| five years ago. II any doubt remained as
| to her title to place one of the most
gifted OF English actresses her work In
| Peters Mother ought to dspel II. I
| hear this morning that arrangements are
| being made to produce the play in the
United States with Marion Terry as soon
| as she can be spared.
Somebody ought, to send over really
| new and really good American, play to be
| put on at the London Waldorf" Not
| from the beginning. when this attractively
appointed playhouse was opened by the Shu-
berts, has a real success been seen there,
and as the enterprise Is rightly regarded
as an American one and several of the
pieces have been OF American origin Il is
about time that real eighteen carat,
transatlantic hit WAS scored there.