Los Angeles herald., 1906-09-25
BARNUM WINS A
GREAT TRIUMPH
BELAsco'S FINE PORTRAYAL
OF BUSINESS is BUSINESS"
Very sklltfuI Play Ably Presented.
orpheum Has Clever Lot Of
stunts-"Fanchon" Revived
by Hotchkiss Players

The play, Business Is Business is
the thing at the Belasco this week, and,
it being almost a monologue Tor george
Barnum. ergo. Barnum Is the play.
And a more exquisite artistic treat was
seldom afforded a Los Angeles public.
Yet-and here is the anomaly-the audi
ence last night nigh wrecked the play
and utterly spoiled its own pleasure and
appreciation by persisting In taxing
this most intense and moving drama
for comedy, at it's most vital points!
BY so slender a line is tragedy and fool
ishness divided.
AS to the play: 1t Is from the French
of octave Mira beau, done into English
and produced by Mr.. Barnum William
H. Crane played another version in the
east, and achieved the artistic triumph
of his career-though his public would
none of 1t. 1t tells the story of sordid
wealth, it's miseries and its utter i'm
possibility of bringing happiness, with
a truth that is appalling. 1t puts the
lash on financial aggrandizement most
merciessly. 1t pillories the present
tendency to make of money god and
to bow down before the golden calf of
tremendous fortunes. 1t lays bare as
with a scalpel the wretched. sordid
heart of the man who lives for ducats
that is as tragic as it is startling the
utter impotence of mere gain
This it does with a skill, keenness,
a brilliance that makes of every uttered
line an epigram and of every situation
a tableau. The marvellous work of the
dramatst shines out through a fabric
of naturalneSS so artfully woven that
even the most blase seems to see not
a series of stage episodes, but real
action unfolding before him. gripping
his very heartstrings. And as, through
two acts, this bloodless Midas builds up
his structure of mere money and elab-
crates his plans, one follows them with
an awe for the inevitable third that is
fairly chilling, only to see one after an
other his despicable ideals crumble into
dust as his daughter confesSeS her own
infamy and his worshiped son in
brought home dead. to thwart his mar
velous schemes. So totter into ruin the
castles of gilded air. and we are left
with half senile old wretch, who earns
double measure of despising as he stops
before bending over his sons corpse to
drive a Shylock's bargain.
This telling story is related most
skillfully. Each minute episode casts a
world of light on the character of the
man; each word adds to the picture.
The most insignificant incident has its
place and portent, and every gesture,
every posture, carries its interpolated
but needful meaning. The result is a
mosaic so wonderfully contrived, with
such unerring craftsmanship, that it
blends and melts into one huge por-
trait, and one gazes at it fascinated as
by the baleful glare OF a serpent, wholly
obsessed by it's sinister power.
AS to the player: Barnum of course
takes the part of Lechat, eSSayed by
Crane He does a greater work than
did Crane-and this with no inVidious
comparisons. For whereas, the part
requires that Lechat absolutely domin-
ate every scene, even though he be not
in it, and whereas Crane did that easily
by his own bulk and obtrusiVe person
atty George Barnum, by nature small,
retiring, retreating almost, out-domin-
ates Crane by sheer force of superior
art. He compels, nay, throws, his char
acterization so far into the foreground
that his basilisk-like influence is felt
from the moment of his first entrance,
and never after that is the weight of
his presence absent Therein, to the
writer's mind, lies the acme of stage
art-to be what one is not, and yet so
well to be that counterfeit that one be-
lieves it genuine. Only a personal ac-
quaintance with the real Barnum would
convince anyone that the crafty, DOM
inant, msaterful and obsessive Lechat
were not he. Never yet has Barnum,
fine as he always is, done aught to
equal this.
The Belasco company fully rises to
the occasion in this play, and much
credit is due its individual membership.
Miss Gardner's role of the daughter
calls for rigid repression save in one
episode, when almost tragic heights are
reached; she shines under both require
ments. Marie Howe, as Nine. Lechat,
gives a characterization of unusual
merit even for her Balsar as the son
has little to do, but that little is done
WELL Stone as Gerrand, the daughters
lever, may be Disappointing to some
through lack of fervor, but the part is