The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-02-25
There Are Plays and=Plays
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

New York, Feb 2S-Winston Church.
i'll and Rupert Hughes are among the
few VINO know that the plays they
write will be acted if they say so, for
they are rich enough to pay the costs
of productions II that were not SO,
The Title Mart" and The Triangle
would not be on the New York stage
this week. They were rejected long
ago by the theatrical trust managers,
to whom an offer of capitalization did
not appeal. as they had a plenty of
that. But the development of an OPP
position syndicate has opened up prac-
dcable ways TO authors with the none
tary means to make independent ex-
DeTiments.
Churchill has had several of his nov
els dramatized by. other hands than
his own, and none of the results has
been good; so he undertook stagecraft
all by himself, and THE Title Mart"
is what he has to show for it. His
publishers printed and bound an edi
ton of it, but he held it back from the
book market till after it should be put
on sale in the theatres. However, in
the book It has the form of a play
with dialogues and business" only,
but no narrative, although the charac-
tiers and their movements are de-
scribed sufficiently to render them COM
DItueilSlDle 10 ldJ EedOeTS. Iudb 10 the
method followed by the literary ma
lingerer, George Bernard Shaw, so as
to make his idiosyncrasies ineligible;
so did that man Of real mental malady,
Oscar Wilde; so does A. W. Pinero, al
though in his case the sole purpose is
to instruct actors and their stage di
rectOrs how to treat the matter.
Let me digress for a paragraph about
lean evaporation. Englishmen have
never taken him into theatrical consid-
Grafton; no play of his has been per-
formed in a regular way in London.
but two have been accepted in this
country and two have been rejected,
leaving "Cashel Byron's Profession" to
break the tie, with Jim Corbett for its
pugilist and Augustin Days hallowed
stage for the place of the knockout.
Our fashionable folk wouldn't have it
for a stunt in amusements. 1t was
shifted to a theatre where it would get
a chance at the multitude, and there
1t Jared no better. Now 1t is at stock
house. with Corbett and the scenery,
but the local company doing all of
the acting-unless I am to admit that
COrbett acts some.
This thing is like meeting different
fighters in a succession of contests" he
is reported to me as saying. The first
heroine I had to face was Miss Mar
garet Wycherly, the Shakespearean ac-
tress, and I had no more than got onto
her points than they put me UP against
Miss Amelia Bingham, with a starring
reputa ton, to shake my nerve. This
week I put up my hands with Miss
Beatrice Morgan, with a society-to-
stage record. What next? Oh, / guess
I'll go down and out, for the plays no
good, whether I am or not
Maybe that other pug-mummer, Bob
F'itzsimmons, is doing a little bit of
neat acting, and maybe he is not; IL
all depends on facts not in my pos
session. Bob ard Mrs Bob are in vau-
deville together after their newsy sep
aration; and who can tell that his
cha &c that she eloDed with another
man after his last losing fight, her re-
treat to Dakota, with divorcal declara-
lions. and his recOnciliatory pursuit of
her, were not tricks to advertise the
present touT2 1t is \ possibility that
they are still estranged fundamentally
and are reunited for stage purposes
only. That idea is suggested by what
they do at the end of their sketch
they are using the courtship scene
and tire punch-bag exhibition from "A
Fight for Life" their drama of last
sea son; and again he is clumsy at the
wooing and deft at the punching. In
the fuII-length play his lOve-making
has a kiss and embrace for climax
In the sketch the lank, hulking fellow
starts TO hug the pretty, slender young
woman, but she draws back with
show of resentment; and when in a
moment the curtain is lifted, they be
have as f he were miffed ard she
mussad by his attempt to kiss her. II
it is not make-believe, then it is good
acting: and, as repeated with varia-
lions every afternoon and evening, 1t
is interesting anyway.
Now we will climb back for a few
lines, if you please, from the level of
Corbett and F'itzsimmons to that of
Churchill and Hughes. The themes of
The Title Mart" and 1.-The Triangle
are as time-worn, though not yet worn
out. as money in ratrimony. Church
Ills girl is an American heiress whose
socially aspiring stepmother registers
her in the English marriage exchange
to swap for an impoverished duke.
Hughes girl is poor, and she goes in
for a rich husband; but, having got
one, the sweetheart whom she has dis
carded inheTits vast wealth and tries
to buy her release. I cannot tell in this
letter what there is of account in
these two plays, because they have
been postponed until too late in the
week.
That was why I went to Harlem to
see a new melodrama from the west,
no new matter being presented Mon
day evening nearer the center of the
town; and plays of western life have
come into fresh vogue with US; so the
scene of excitement promised in this
one might prove readable The adver-
tisements said that a realistic railway
train would be seen to wind its way
around the Georgetown loop, that mar
vel Of Colorado mountain railroading.
and be held I'D by a stage band of
robbers so faithful to fact that, on
starting for the theatre, I felt an i'm
pulse to take along no more money
than car fare. leave my watch at home
and keep ready to throw up my hands
quick.
'"The nearer a stage character gets
to his home the smaller his value be-
comes William H Crane once said
to me- 1.-THE senator whom I person
ated In The Senator was well known
to be Senator Plumb of Kansas, and
in Washington the likeness was
source of popularity but when / went
to Plumb's own state the play wasn't
liked much. / had a similar eXDeri-
ence with The Governor of Kentucky