The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-04-01
ODDITIES IN BROADWAY PLAYS
sY
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

New York, March 3O-The birth of
a third John D. Rockefeller joggles the
attitudes given to the first and second
John d. Rockefeller in two plays. In
the same week that a burlesque of
1.-The Lion and the Mouse" is intro
duced in 1.-THE Vanderbilt Cup" with
J. D. l. represented as opposing an
abandonment of bacheIorhood by J.
D. H., the newspapers are giving much
publicity TO the fact that ]. D. IL is
a husband and father, to the delight
of j. d. L. But mere scraps of legal
paper, like a marriage and a birth GER
| tificate, shall not lessen the glee of
! audiences at seeing the Oldest of the
j. DIS thrown down and stamped on
! by a girl whom he doesn't want for a
| daughter-in-laW- The new travesty
snatches him baldheaded. His gray
wig is torn off, he loses even his skull
] cap, and on his thinskinned skull,
which slightly protects his sensitive
| brain, fall the missiles of merriment.
Jacques Kruger's face and figure re-
semble ROckefeller's to begin with, the
utter hairlessness is easily initiated,
and the result is an image that looks
like caricature yet is a portrait in
! but little exaggeratiOn
Inc Standard king goes to the Van
derbllt cup race to see that none but
MS gasoline is burned in the automo-
piles There he encounters his son, the
Sunday-schOOl teacher, whose piety is
made to seem prOfligacy for in all in
nOcence he is found asleep with a gay
girls head on his shoulder and an
! empty champagne bottle in his lap.
Afterward. the good old John the Bap-
list himself is caught, quite sinless but
SuSpecta BILE, in the midst of half a doz-
en- dancing SalOmes. who seem bent
on kicking his head off, instead of hav-
/ ing it cut off.
Thus far it has been all foOlery. too
silly to hurt But of a sudden comes
a travesty of that scene in THE Lion
and the Mouse" where the Obdurate
Rockefeller father is defied by the Ida
TarbeH Observation-Disclosures with
Elsie Janis as a mimic of Ida, and the
two fat comedians, Henry V. DOnnelly
and Otis Harlan, throwing their weight
cruelty on the Rockefeller father and
son. Here the wild fun becomes al
most earnestly satirical and the shafts
of wit are tipped with antitrust dyna-
mite. 1t is odd to see a musical farce
go beyond the shooting of folly as
1t flies and fire a broadside at a seri-
Gus problem.
There is milliOnariSm in the new
drama of Margaret Pryor" and high
hnanciering, too. A Rockefeller and a
Morgan or a Hartman and a Rogers
or Belmont and a Ryan, get at each
other in fight for a railway. I have
been extra willy to avoid designating
any one of these six as a prototype of
the wall street operator who in the
play, hires wire Taper to steal his
adVerSary'S secrets as they pass from
phone to phone over a private line
The thieving is done i'm a room under
meath the roof across which the special
wire is strung. The tapping plant has
cOlOTP6 trio hr1I 70
proach of foes. and there is a button
TO touch which will give an intruder
a stroke of lightning before he reaches
the door The audience sees the
mechanism operated UP to the point
where the plotting high-lOw fnancier's
own daughter has the button pushed
for her by a blunder, and is brought
IN limp as though dead from electrocu-
ton. The act might end with that for
a climax. But there is more to come |
For particulars see next paragraph
Why have the theatrical thrill |
weights been so slow to put an cleo
trlcal torture chamber into Dla--p
How can they have been 50 duilwit-
ted in all their inventions of misery
making machinery as to leave out the
dynamo as producer of anguish? But
1t is on the stage at last: and ooh.
my! a woman gaSped in front of me,
GOOD gracious! a woman ShiVered
behind me. Hot stuff" a man ex-
claimed beside me. and from across the
aisle came the OutcrieS of a scared
child. The boss wire tapper's wife
comes in and is accused of Deaching.
which she hasn't done. and so his
whacking and choking don't make her
tell things that she Fl doesn't know
IIhereupon he opens a door and filings
her out of sight She is invisible but
moment. though. for the wall kindly
obligeS by becoming transparent. so
as TO reveal the first electrical torture
chamber known to meIodrama.
a few faint flashes show the man
fastening the woman fiat on her back.
Then he touches keys here and there. |
at which threads of incandescence
WIND around her. cleaning points fizz
and sputter at her head and feet. balls
of dazzling light fling themselves at
her body. and there are vOlIevs of ev
ploSion like bomhardment with thun- |
derbOlts. Those things seem to hurt
her very much. She writhes and
screams in agony, begs for mercy and /
at last agrees to confess to anything !
that the man wants her to- The au-
thor OF this play is not named in the
bill. But, my dear Mr.. Edison. YOU |
may as well own up
But Edison had a cola borator, whom |
easily identify as Victorian Sardou. |
Who is so practiced or so ingenious |
as Sardou in the hiding of lovers in /
wives bedrooms? Who else than Sar-
dou, at this late day in matrimonial /
triangle plays could give new circum- |
stances to the old situation? Mar |
Saret Pryor has been bride since this
morning only. Family affairs have pre-
vented her starting On a honeymoon |
journey. She goes home instead and
the husband promises TO STAY away
from her. Now it is night, and she pre-
pares to go to bed all by her lone self
as usual But her lover has hidden
himself behind curtain He means to
grab her away from wedIock Her
husband rapS at the door He is de-
termined to take immediate possession.
The curtain falls ON q faithful 1t L..