The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-01-06
REALISTIC EFFECTS IN
NEW FARCES IN NEW YORK
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.


cal plays that whirled into New York
on New Years eve had realistic EFF
fects" that they didn't need. The storm
at sea, that is the most remarkable
sight in "Brewster's Millions" and the
sudden shower I'm Caught in the RAIN"
are among the most widely discussed Of
recent stage spectacles; yet they con-
tribute nothing to the fun of the plays
in which they figure, and the former
and more extraordinary illusion might
be said TO rather stem the tide Of mer-
r;ment. 1t took five authors and as
many more intimately interested ad-
visers to make play out of the vastly
popular novel of "Brewster's Millions"
Frederick Thompson saw at first read
ing of George Barr McCutcheon's story
of man who had to spend every cent
of a million dollars In one year in order
to inherit seven times that sum, an
opportunity for an extraordinary pre-
sentation of yacht i'm a storm. and set
TO work to build a play around it, Find
ing that a little out OF his line, he en-
ployed we'll known American dramat-
list TO do the job, and though his name
does not figure on the program, it is
fair to assume that some of his work
appears on the stage. The making of
the farce is credited wholly to Winchen
Smith and Byron Ongley. rather incon-
spicuouS actors, who are new at plav-
writing. Just how much of the piece is
theirs is not so much to the point as the
fact that any share in the making of
play so merrily diverting is creditable.
The farce that the storm at sea in
terrupts, just at the moment when it's
novel scheme seems likely 10 become
tedious from repetition, exhausts every
possible twist to the reckless spending
of million dollars and, with its sole
deliberate purpose of causing laughter
incidentally satirizes the frenzied fin
ance spirit of the age. And with all
its wild extravaganza of idea it MAIN
tains semblance of plausibility. That
is one of the good reasons why the play
is destined to prolonged popularity
When the whimsical proposition Of
spending a million dollars in a
year, in order to inherit seven
more, is made to q young man who is
then celebrating his first good fortune
with house-warming party. he SCOTS
at it. Put SORT of plausibility is given
to the condition IN the second will and a
sentimental reason to his compliance
with 1t by the explanation that the flrst
money comes from grandfather. who
had denied its aid to the young mans
needy mother before her pitiful death:
while the seven millions comes from a
recently enriched uncle, who resented
the dead old mans hardness to his
daughter. and requires that none of his
money shall benefit that poor woman's
son.
Edward Abeles is the actor, long in
other players companies who energies
as star IN "Brewster's Millions" and
the cordial ado made over him on the
first night, reached the point OF Ulcers
before his performance was half over.
In many plays he has helped William
Collier to success, giving a contrast Of
earnest, convincing seriousness TO that
wag's irresponsible high links But on
this night when Collier in a new play
at another theatre was dividing atten-
ton with his former associate. Abeles
was doing his sort of thing, and doing
ii wonderfully well. 1t is a difficult
thing, after an act of incessant laugh
ter, to bring the curtain down with 5re
line or incident enough funnier than
those that have gone before TO excite
climatic roar. In one of the farces
in which they acted together, they were
on the stage at the end, and desired to
finish The fun with an uproarOus veil OF
mirth. They couldn't be sure Just what
line would create that, so Trey rlanned
to talk on and on, after the plot had
been wound up. and when the audience
laughed its loudest, to give the wink
the curtain quickly and sharp. I don't
know whether Abeles and his ten au-
thors worked that way with BREW
ster's Millions" before it reached New
York, but, by the apparently simple
means of lines in just the right place
and of Abeles' method of speaking
them, each act of the farce ended with
enough fun to keep the spectators tit
tering throughout the intermissions.
How 1.-THE Road to Yesterday, got on
the stage L don't know. and cannot
imagine, for dream plays are under
managers taboo, women are disfavored
as dramatists, and the subject of this
work is its heroine's nightmare. while
its writer's. programmed as 3. NJ Dix
and T.. @. Sutherland, have Beulah and
Evelyn for first names. These angels
have rushed in where male mortals fear
to tread, and made q drama on me-
An American girl tired
out by a day Of sightseeing among
London's antiquities, and in the even
ing one of an assemblage in an artists
studio, where medieval costumes and
armor are on view, talks about that old
psychological vagary, the transmigra-
ton and reincarnation of souls. She is
in psychic state of nerves, and of pain
in the stomach, too, for she has eaten
unduly Of Cheshire cheese. She fancies
vaguely that some trivial new happen
ings are duplicates of old ones-that
she has seen and heard the same things
in other circumstances-you know the
weirdly haunting sensation. She takes
a narcotic, lies down for an hours nap,
and dreams herself back along the
road to yesterday" until her soul is in
the body which it occupied three CEN
turtles ago.
You perceive, don't you. that 1.-THE
Road to Yesterday" is a phantasy quito
impossible as a play of normal emo
tons and dependent upon the difficult
writing out of an easily concocted seen
ario? Its nightmare half, the middle
two acts, is romantic melodrama
streaked with wit and spattered with
humor The actress chosen for the
dreamer is the wide-eyed and child
voiced Minnie Dupree, and she behaves
in mid-England scenes of 1903 like an
other bewildered Alice in Wonderland.
She is confusedly conscious that she is
asleep, but she can't wake up, and
slowly she believes that she has be-
come the long-ago predecessor of her
self-a fair ladye of We seventeenth CEN