The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-05-13
HThe Lion and the Mouse Money Maker
81 FRANKLIN FYLEs.
BT FRANKLIN FYLES.

Is scared by the probability that her
Identity will be disclosed to her lover.
But all sentiment is instantly lost in
wild farcicality. A comic woman is
hauled in through window to the mid
die of the commotion, where she has a
fit of shrieking Mysteries. So the star
actress is put clear out of il, and il she
were not the authors wife she would
throw up her part. 1 should think that
anyway, she would make him rewrite
her role under a threat of divorce for
cruelty.
Roosevelt is not in "A Square Deal
although the title is quoted from him;
nor does William H. Crane act in the
play, although it was written for him,
and its character of Kansas politician
is the same bluff, breezy Kansan whom
he portrayed in 1.-THE Senator" But
Crane won't use a piece so largely rus
tic as this one. He doesn't mind start
ing in the country but wants to be
elected to go to washington, as he has
been many times. He couldn't bring
himself to be no more than a member
of the Kansas legislature, and never ar
rive at anything nearer to an interna-
tional function than q reception at To-
peka- So he has spent the season in
An American Lord" giving UP a seat
in congress and going to England to
take the title and estate he has fallen
heir to.
The skill of a playwright who cuts
Deal" 1 had no idea when I went TO
see it that Edward Z. Rose had created
Hannibal Hawkins in the likeness of
Crane, but / discerned the fact that be-
fore Hannibal had spoken twenty
words. The actor was Otis =. Thayer.
but the role was Crane, the Crane Of
n dozen American comedies. IN all he
said and did, and the way he said and
did it.
The deal that needed to be squared
e.,
bOodlery. 1t had been schemed in Kan
sas, if we are to accept the dramatist
as a historian, to grab the public lands
of that state and turn them over to
trust. In furtherance OF that job,
young fellow, HargredveS, was sent to
the legisla ture to Introduce and pro-
mote the corrupt bill. OF course there
must be a woman in any case that is
presented i'll a play, and this time the
author had to provide one with whom
ably be lovestruck.
That is the difficulty encountered by
the writer Of a play for an actor past
the romantic age-such a long-past
youth as Dickey Mansfield Johnny
Drew, Natty Goodwin. Eddie Willard,
Louie James or Otie Skinner-the ne
Cessity Of what is stage-termed heart
interest. No matter if the star actor be
a grandfather in fact, his public likes
To see MN go through the process OF
courtship leading to marital procTeatiOn.
The problem for the dramatist is how to
save him from being ridiculous The
common way is to make the matured
and almost widowed lover realize his
unSuita bility and harbOr no hope of
winning the girl. who is all the while
loving him, and. whom he mistakenly
believes TO be in love with Younger
man. And the senior must try to bring
about, although it pUncJures his own
heart, her marriage with the Junior If
any reader of this paragraph has
good, fresh egg of an idea that will
hatch out a new breed of old roosters
for the dramatic hennery, he or she
the undersigned. There is a Wailing cry
| from half-Century actors for plays that
! viii mate them with quarter-century
! actresses in way that will make audi
euces say, God bless you,"
Mr.. Rose had 10 use the familiar de-
vice, but he varied it some. He put
into "A Square Deal for his Kansan
politician to love- a schOOlmarm barely
young enough to escape death under
| the law set forth in the song:
There are no old maids in Kansas
For when they're thirty-One
They shoot 'em with q gun.
/ So there amt no old maids in Kansas. -
The author may not have been aware
! of that destruction of prolonged maid
enhOOd in Kansas; there IS no mention