The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-01-14

rlcal public opinion is quick and final
Within the past month Broadway con-
oemned seven plays to death and their
remains were buried Immediately. For
merly it was not so. The verdicts were
slow and the executions tardy. Not
only were failures kept going, but sue
cesses did not demonstrate themselves
rapidly. John II Raymond borrowed
$500 to bring out Colonel Sellers" and
the start was so feeble that there
would have been a stop at the end of
a week if Mark Twain had not put
$1,000 into the venture. Eventually,
Raymond made a fortune and Twain
got $50 for each one of the thousands
Of performances. william J. Florence
could not get a loan with which to
stage The Mighty Dollar" and his
credit was so poor that, the furniture
being unpaid for at the end of an IN
prosperous fortnight 1t was taken
away and the sudden illness of Mrs.
Florence" shut the house for that even
ing. But the Florences were enriched
later. Now, Colonel Mulberry Sellers
and Hon. Bardwen Slote were true
American humorists, Raymond and
Florence characterized them racily, and
in these present different times they
wouldn't be more than one day old be-
fore their theatres were crowded,
The haSty clearance Of Broadway
stages has given unexpected openings
to dramas by two clergymen, the Rev.
Drs. Thomas Dixon and Charles F.
Goss, and to a third in which a pugilist,
James ]. Corbett, is the principal actor.
truly, the professions are getting hob
nohby. In THE Clansman," the parson
who takes the stage for his pulpit
makes a political stump of it, too, for
his play Is an avowed attempt to agi-
rate the question of negro SIN. New
York newspapers have been pestered
with letters purporting to come from
IA usans, the advertisements have her
aided the piece as having caused tu-
mUlts in the south, and the author, be-
ing a man of peace as well as turbu-
lence, has hoped publicly that there
would be no disorder in the theatre
when it was presented. Brother Dixon
need have no fear He could foment
no fury in New York. We never went
through a reconstruction period. the
word carpetbag has no political mean
ing TO us, and the Ku-Klux Khan is re-
membered vaguely as something far
OH OF course, ] am speaking Of our
people who make UP theatre audiences.
and not of those who have read "The
CIansman" and "The Leopard's Spots -
So, as I suppose. New Workers. general
ly went see, or If they do see they
won't care about. the racial problem as
Brother Dixon draraattzes it.
On Monday night the theatre was
crowded by people of southern birth
and they wildly approved every asser-
ton of the negrO's social inferiority
but on Tuesday night. when the assem-
blage was largely northern. there was
little ado ever the discussion of a fact
that isn't disputed in. this part of the
= Nrr H.
cause Brother Dixon saws that black is
black and white is white? AS to the
Tuiatto lieutenant governor Of South
Cardinals proposal to marry The daugh-
ter of the white abolitionist, we take =
as a practical joke on man who
breaches mfscegenation. but won't have
II practiced in his own family.
With its prea chnent thus null in New
York's view. 1.-The Clansnnan" is left a
mere nelodrama of the Ku-Klux Khan:
and IL is forceful one-but its place
with US is in the Bowery, not in Broad
way. Probably we won't buy it largely
a. two dollars. but we might at fifty
cents. As likely you know. its hero is
hfgh-bred young southerner who
leads the Klan in South Carolina, and
I ne opposing villain is the brown Lieu
tenant Governor Lynch, while other
real persona ges. such as Governor
Shrimp. General Forrest and Senator
thompson, figure in the plays politics
Lynch IS made to take the white hero
inc into his arms with a suggestion of
lustful assault, but his offense isn't
criminal. for 1t consists Of an offer TO
be her husband. The actor is a big,
handsome, intellectual fellow, with half
of negro's color. but none of a ne
gro's features. Dixon hasn't been IN
fair to the blacks in that particular.
for the player of the white hero is not
at all good looking.
Mr., Dixon has gone to 1.-THE Bells"
for device TO present Electrically, vet
not revOltingly, a negro's assault IlpOn
a little while girl, He is an ugly ami
NAL as we have seen him earlier. and
she a dainty creature. She wanders
from the house and her body is found
in the woods. Her brother calls the
Ku-Klux Khan together We don't see
them at first, in the dark of their cave
at midnight, but we hear them open
their session with prayer Slowly their
masked figures in ghostly white come
into dim view. The negro is brought
in and thrown among them. His terror
is abJect, but he won't confess. Here
the idea from THE Bells is utilized.
The dead child's father is q hypnotist.
The negro is put into a trance and
commanded to tell what he has done,
as Matthias was; and. also as in the
case of Matthias, a light shines into
the gloom and illumines the culprit
while he describes his crime. That
makes a weird episode, for it is well
done. But / think that our audiences
are disappointed in the outcome. The
wretch is merely sent out with a guard
to be hanged quietly We expect to see
him burned alive, if ever "The Clans
man should be transferred from
Broadway to the Bowery, perhaps a
spectacle will be made of pyrotechnic
capital punishment.
Brother Goss himself did not make
over his story, 1.-The Redemption of
David Corson," into play, but let Lot
tie Blair Parker do it. and she has en-
deavored to give it a resemblance to her
6 Way Down East" Does it surprise
you that Julia Marlowe was convinced
that the book contained theatrical
value? She planned to act its gypsy
girl who tempts young David to eschew
Christianity and take to gambling
adultery and murder, and then, IN a
way dear TO the heart of an emotional
actress, redeens him through her love.
The character, I should say, would
have been highly popular if Miss Mar
lowe had played It, for she would have
insisted on a reasonable dramati zation,
with the girl dominant instead Of the