The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-09-02

quired costly tastes and vanities dur
ing the first half OF the play. and now
he is asked TO pay the price Of money
to indulge them. His brother Mark, a
soulless schemer for wealth, sees a
chance to make 1t by buying some land
which a Lord Carew refuses to sell.
Marks wife loves Carew and hates her
husband; so he dares not ask her to
utilize her sentimental influence by in
ducing Carew to transfer the property;
but he offers $25,0 to Crane to per-
suade his wife, and Crane in his desire
to capitalize his own family, does the
shameful job. In the fourth act he at
first demands 100000 for the deed TO
the land, but undergoes a reaction of
pride and conscience and tears up the
document. That is the Crane part OF
the story. and he presents il with his
usual unsubtle yet explicit and graphic
method.
Alfred Sutro did not write this drama
to provide a star role for Crane, or any
one else. His evident purpose was to
give novelty TO the everlasting tri-
angle" Of a man, his wife and her low
er. He achieves his object by making
the wife and her lover guilty of moth
ing worse than utterly intellectual
adultery. They hope to marry if ever
she gets legally and morally free of
her husband; and in the meanwhile the
| lover takes her away to a home of his
/ providing; yet their affair, although
defiant of the worlds verdict of guilty,
I is known by the audience to be inno-
cent. Sutro seems to approve their be-
! lief that marriage. when ii separates
/ true lovers, is wrongful institution.
/ A neat way to turn nice dramatic art
! In 10 clean commercial gain is 10 take
/ clever but not costly actors to make
stars Of, and put them into plays for
which light royalties only have to be
paid, the casts of which make short
salary lists. and the scenic and COS
tune outfits require small OUTLAWS; so
that the losses are moderate on fail
uIes, profits may be reached with but
/ tolerabIs successes and always there
is the chance of hitting on a fortune.
By that process a new and tsctful
manager started Henry r. Dixey last
year with THE Man on the Box" and
! Cyril Scott with The Prince Chap"
and they are still going prosperousiy.
/ This season he has half a dozen prof.
ects planned similarly, and two Of them
l-Bilda Spong in Lady Jim" and VIII
liam Hawtry in The Two Mr.. Wealth
erbys"-are in this weeks theatrical
divulgence. One OF these looks like
a good venture and the other does not.
John Hankin meant to duplicate THE
Serious Family by presenting a study
of domestic hypocrisy in The Two Mr..
Weatherbys" but wrote so tamely that
il bored a small audience on the hot
test evening in August hopeless
start, indeed; but a hundred English
actors. rehearsing or idling in town,
We're there TO boom the American de-
but of Charles Hawtrey's brother Will
liam, and their applause made more
CommOtiOn in the parquet than the
play did on the stage.
Yet there is a touch Of singularity in
the farce at the outset Jim Weather
by has an ultra pious wife. and by
lying to her about his evenings out. he
gets to be called the good Mr.. Wealth
erby. to distinguish him from his
brother Dick, who is a truth-teller, and
therefore becomes known as the bad
Mr.. Weatherby. In farces Of connubial
mendaCity. the liar usually gets into
difficulty right off: but here the sin
cere husband loses his wife immedi-
ately. while the hypocrite keeps his
awhile. That is all that can be said
for the play. Mr.. Hawtrey is an agree
able comedian.
A second thoroughly English piece is
Lady jim" although the Harold
] I4eaton who wrote it has made a liv-
ing in America some years as actor
artist and journalist. The Lady Jim
of it. Hilda Spong, is an English COM
edienne of the round and smooth,
creamy and buttery type. Her whole
some personality is utilized in Heatons
heroine-a rural gentlewoman. who
goes to London 10 find out. whether her
niece's sutton is a good fellow. She gets
into his bachelor apartments and finds
a supper table laid for two. with a
] bunch Of viOlets to show that the eX-
pected guest is feminine. He fOists a
woman servant on her as a whiting
aunt, but the trick is quickly exposed.
and the host locks Lady Jim in his
/ quarters while he goes to placate his
( iancee. Criss-cross action fills the play
with fun, and the climax is marriage
for the woman with her antagonist in
the duel Of wits.