The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1907-03-17
TWO SHAW PLAYS
LEAVE BAD TASTE
Even New York Audiences Don't
Like Amusements So
Highly Seasoned.
"THE SPOILERS MAKES A HIT
49,
Joe Jcffersoi,'s Sons in playing
The Came Pleases
Broadway.
"THE SPOILERS MAKES A HIT

NEW YORK, March 15.-'rainted
money is the subject Of three plays
put forth here this week. in the case
OF "rne Spoilers" the theme exactly
stated, is a greed for gold not coined
ii.to money. but ns yet ore In an Alas 4
kan mine. Ono OF the recent fctional
writings of fact was Rex Beach's story
of governmental wrongs in our terri
tory OF Alaska---how the first courts
there were utilized to take mines away
from their owners and turn them over
to authorized lootcrs; how vigilantes
thereupon displaced the formal pro-
cesses of adjudication, and how
young man and young woman, mu-
| tual lovers, had their hetrts caught
| and crushed between the opposed
| forces. 1 remember to have read that
| MIR Beach evolved the book from his
own personal observation, so far as Its
exposure of political dishonor was con-
| cerned, after returning from Alaska,
/ where he had lost a mine to the spoil
4 ers'': but book publihsers nowadays
4 are like theatrical managers in en-
ployng agents to lie to tho newspa-
pers, 80 no one needed to. believe that
Mr.. Beach had lost n gold mine in
Nome, any mora than that some actress
had been robbed of O pint of diamonds
1 in the Tenderloln. However, as Mr..
4 Beach stood before a Broadway audi
ence. wriggling and twisting in the
agonics of curtain-called transports of
delight. he didn't look like a man who
would--at least not under the stress
of that moment Of pleasurable torturs
undertake to tell a lie. I should
| hnf no. t,av ri 1, al
name. and all his aliases, If asked, and
confessed to the hachettlng Of whole
grove of cherry trees, IL accused. He
. said that truth was back of tho play
which he and James Macarthur had
, made out Of his novel So THE Spoil.
; ers" In the stage version may be &C.
! cepted as realistic drama of Amerl.
, can life In our Northwestern corner,
! Ralph Stuart is the actor of Roy
Glenister, the stalwart fellow who be-
gins by saying, There's never a Law
of God or man that runs north OF fifty
three" and so believing. starts in t.
WOO an Alaskan girl tourist brutishly
like bulldog hunting quail; and
was amused to watch the audience'
discovery OF Stuart. He had been al
idolized leading man Of a stock com
Ipany in Lexington Avenue, also on
.. in Eighth Avenue, and he had toure
starringly, yet Broadway felt itsel
critically acute to find In him an ac
complished actor. He was called GU
with an enthusiasm that had patro
nizing manner--an I-saw- him first as
sertiyeness-to which the actor bowe
quite as though applause was ne'
and surprising delight to him, instea
of being a tSvice-a-day experience fc
years. Not since Hackett thrust an
slashed his way to popularity with
sword In THE Prisoner of Zenda," M
even when Bellew welded blade Il
love In "a Gentleman of France" ha
that sort OF a New York audience bee
one was when Stuart thrashed tt
william. And that was but one OF mar
lively incidents transferred from IL
book to the play.
haven't gone wrong IL have In
parted the idea that The Spoilers"
a whoop-yow, tough-stuff. mimi,
camp melodrama. Many plays Of TIL
character have been aimed West al
Southwest, but this Is the first to poi
to tho far Northwest, and 1t hit Il
bull's-eye at the opening fire In Nc
York with a sharp ding Of tho be
because 1t had an emotional soul In
brawny body.
"Widowers' Houses"
The houses indicated by George BE
nard Shaw, In giving the mock scri
tural title OF "Widowers' Houses"
the first play he ever wrote, and t
twelfth to sbe performed in lhis eli
are ranshackle. unsanitary tenemen
such as London law used to permit r
pacious landlords to pen squallid tie
ants In like pigs in stys. their own
is a Pecksratfian church warden, who