The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-11
.SCALPING THB CRITICS.
BILL BRADY AVENGES EAST IND
IANS AND CIGAR INDIANS.

-. hOON ~ WY
ManLaren as Earnest Dramatist and
Magpie Of tn Theatre-Chunk Realism
There is no doubt that Bill Brady Is In
deadly earnest-he the ex-impresario OF
the prizering and present slugger In the
squared circle Of the drama as 1t Is wrote
on Broadway. No one who was not In
deadly earnest could possibly cause 80 much
pain to his friends and ill his enemies
with such unbounded glee- Every even
ing. clad In wampum and age, he mounts
the stage at the Liberty and defes the
critics OF this metropolis, who, he asserts,
are banded together in q conspiracy OF
Jokes and lies to ruin him and his latest
Santos-Dumon flight into poetic tragedy
and every morning he breaks out in the
advertising columns OF the press with the
statement, six times reiterated in big black
capitals, that The Redshn' has been
acclaimed q succass-and tanks the state
mont with sir verdicts to prove it, shipped
cut Of the very papers which he Is brand
ing as liars. His cry is tina the critics
sacrifice truth to their own wit. By night
he arraigns n particular paper for having
made that hilarious, that side splitting
remark that his Indians are cigar Indians,
and by day he quotes from the same paper
as follows: "Hit Broadway between the
eyes. At the end Of the second act the
audience went ~wild.-SUN." Consistency,
as Emerson Sc piently remarks, Is the virtue
OF small minds. Let us all, therefore sing
the praises of the mighty deeds OF Hiawatha'
lightweight champion Of heavy art;
Brady scalped the band Of critics.
OF their scalps he made him mittens.
Padded, bloody. four ounce mittens.
He, TO get their brain side OUTSIDE.
Turned the in side. sklnside outside.
And to get their warm stde inside.
Turned the outside. hair side inside.
Thus he scalpa1 the band Of critics
Nightly turned them inside outside.
Mr.. Brady has not, however, hit the war
path of exalted inconsistency without pro-
test. The Chicago Record-Herdld notes
his assertion that the critics are amusing
and suggests that, as the end OF m
art is enjoyment, matters are to be most
easily righted by giving over the stage
to the critics and putting the solemn author
manager and actors in the orchestra seats.
A Daniel come to judgment!
Meantime, it is to be feared, the author
Of "The Redskin" might lack OF critical
consideration. and he deserves it as I'M
deniably as he needs it. For if Mr.. Brady
and his band of real Sioux failed him behind
the scenes there is little hope that they
would do better in front of them. The
sim h fact is that Mr.. Donald Maclaren is
ins, icei with an unusual earnestness and
sincerity of feeling, and that he has thrown
togethe. n play which has no little theatrio
apre1l Of the more obvious sort, and
which, IL Mr.. Brady had RETAINED from
dragging it 50 persistently into public
ridieule. might have enjoyed an encourag-
Ing SUCCESS. In his better moments he
has that rarest of qualities, the instinct for
essentially and powerfully dramatic situa-
ton and character, the lack of which pre-
vented Tennyson from quite mastering the
stage, and kept even the strongly human
and passionate temperament OF Browning
forever beyond its purlieuF.
His central theme, or the one which he
should nave made central, is that Of lie
Cid of Corneille-the love of a man for a
woman whose father he is bound by the AVIS
Of his kind to kill in revenge. Outside OF
medieval Spain there is probably no place
where this ~acutely dra matte theme is pos
sible, except among savages. Incidental
to this is a situation as strong as that Of
the Edipus, though differing from it in
detail. Where the greatest of Greek heroes
of tragedy pronounced a ban that meant
his own death LondudndG p~ronounces
a ban that means the death of his only
daughter and the blindness Of Edipus,
which is that of ignorance. is very effec-
lively supplied blythe chiefs actual physical
blindness.
The Sc two situations. each Of which
affords material for ore Of the very greatest
of the worlds ira &c dies, Mr.. MGcIaren
treats with convincing sincerity ard dra-
matte force. He should ha We known that
they we're enough, in all cor science, to
furnish forth the NEST romantic Of dramas.
But he does not even deserve tie praise
which Gilbert hea red upon Oscar Wilde
thst Re had the courage Ct other peoples
coryictiors. He Ielegates his NEST promis-
ing ; nd I Nc ctive matcria Is 10 & suboI dinate
position in lis rley making the great
scenes of the third cct a death dance of real
Sioux about the hero tied to the sta Ike, and
a hand TO hand duel with knives. Both
scenes are Of the kind familiar lorg ago
TO the Bowery, ardno effloTescert in Third
Avenue and Eighth. The result is what
should have been expected. The scene
which hits the audience between the eyes
and makes il 30 wild, Incidentally affordirg
Mr.. Brady q chance to lea p upon the stage
and do the same. is that OF the second act.
The death dance and the knife duel excite
some interest, but much visibility.
Even this does not exhaust the dramatic
odds and ends in Mr.. MacLaren's collection.
From Shakespeare he snatches up such
uncorsidered Il ifes as Jpliofs scene with
her nurse and P0rtio's choosing among
lovers. To the modern French drama he
Is indebted for a situation rising out Of the
fact that the heroine is an illegitimate
child born in wedlock-the acute argyle
of the triangle ha wing been a white man
ard the gi,l's legitimacy never having
fallen under suspicion, though she is 80
white as to bear the sob'iquet The Lily.
From the Drury Lane melcdrs ma or its
derivatives he has taken a comic scene
In which certoin maidens are surprised
by a party Of men while in bathing ard
bereft of their clothing, and finally from
"The Darling of the Gods the final scenic