The Washington herald., 1907-11-05

A large audience was made happy last
night at the Belasco Theater in witness
ing the fine performance given by Miss
Minnie Dupree and a good supporting
company. of the fantastic comedy. The
Road 10 Yesterday" by Beulah M Dix
and Evelyn G. Sutherland II was a
typical Washington audience. with many
distinguished people present. and Mrs
Theodore Roosevelt and a party occupied
a box which was draped with the Ameri-
can nag and decorated with the United
States coat-of-arms. The play is one Of
the big successes of recent times and has
been so popular elsewhere that this is its
first visit TO Washington. BY the delay
WashingtOnians have been the losers.
The play is a genuine delight-fantastic.
impossible, and yet with something vital
about it-something that appeals with
force TO each individual in the audience
There are few human souls but at strange
times have felt, uncannily. that some
thing which is now happening has hap
pened before-in some dim and unrecog-
nizable past. There are few, indeed. who
have not ached with the yearning Of Ten
nyson's-
the tender grace Of day that is dead
VIII never come back 10 me.
And in this play we have the story Of
little American girl who has been steeped
In Old World romance; wko has seen all
the swashbuckling plays and read all the
knighthood" novels until her soul is sat
urated with the idea that those times OF
oid were the good old times and when she
comes to London she sees in every stone
story and in every crooked London
street a broad road leading 10 the poetry
OF history. II is a midsummer eve, and
they are all in the studio OF VIII Leveson.
artist. in Kensington, and Wits friend.
JACK Greatorex. has consented 20 pose for
a picture OF a cavalier of the seventeenth
century. Elspeth sees him in the costume,
and then she falls asleep and dreams. and
in moment, with some imagination on the
part of the audience and some adroit
stage mechanics. the whole story shifts
from the year 1903 10 the year 1903, and all
the characters are transported back three
hundred years, TO play the parts they
played before their many incarnations
down the centuries
II is not all tragic, for the comedy
element in the change is irresistible.
Inere Is Kenel Paulton. British officer
in 1903, who in 1903 was a tyrannicaI
lord. Mr.. Adrian Tompkins. artistic
oilettante in his friends studio. and who
has averred that he must have been
oliver Cromwell in another existence.
who, transported back along the Road
10 yesterday. finds himself a tapster at
q country inn. The dignified Aunt Har-
riet Is tho good wife Of the inn; and all
the characters are changed TO what they
were three hundred years before. and
Elspeth herself is transformed into LADY
Elizabeth Tyrell. heiress to a vast
fortune and in need Of a hero to save
her from the Vaccinations of her vii
famous guardian, Lord Strangevon.
The second and third acts, placed in the
year 1903, are delightful In the fine tray
esty they offer on the worship OF the
romantic period. Nothing happens quite
as II should in the story book. or IN The
romantic plays of our age. The hero IS
not a gentleman. and because there are
no forks. he eats with his knife. He is
not even brave. for when ne is set upon
by FIVE men and the heroine begs TO
save her, instead OF fighting them all
'N--N "AAAAAAAAts ALt says save you. IL
] were six men I would and leaps
nimbly from the window.
1t is all strange admixture Of the mod
ern and the romantic. Elspeth herself
believes she is dreaming, but she can't
wake herself up. even when she pinches
herself. Her Aunt Harriet, now the inn
keeper. uses archaic language. and when
Elspeth demonstrates with her the virago
threatens her with a clout on the head
"a clout o the head" says Elspeth; "and
Aunt Harriet accuses me of using slang"
The whole change Is beautifully worked
up, too. The company in the studio is
ambued with thoughts of the possibility
of reincarnation, and when Paulton makes
love to Malena. the shadow Of the past
of three hundred years ago creeps In be
tween them, and she cries that somehow
she doesn't know why-she can't trust
him. The whole idea is weird, and some
how It forces the audience to believe.
There Is passage at the end Of the first
act:
Kenelm-How much in earnest are you when you
talk that reincarnation stuh-abt our living here
3n this world. again and again. in many per
eonalties, the soul working out many chapters
Of long life-story?
Malena-Hard to say. Keni Sometimes it's all
Just fancy 20 me-and then again By tiunes-Shen
] see a long road going over a hill
kenelm-I know! Just sometimes I feel
black something face me- and II says: Look. once
vas you. And what I canned. you pay"
Mslena-Keni How paw For how lOngl
Kenelm-How longi Through lives and lives
through hells and hells-til the win that has made
has unmRde
Malena-But az last
Kenelm-surely at last as tho reckoning struck.
20 the hour a release will strike But good tiodi-
how long the reckoning "a. sometmes-and how
blind the soul that pays IL.
II is plain here that the play strikes a
deeply serious out none the less interest
ing note It trenches on that great hu-
man mystery. that from Job to Omar
Khayyam and down 10 the present day,
has never been answered. and never will
be answered on this earth-of whence we
came and where we go. This phase of the
riddle Is not too strongly dwelt upon. but
Il is there. and is not to be ignored.
In such a play as this skilIful acting
counts for a very great deal, and the
present company does full justice to the
beautiful idea and the clever dialogue
Miss Minnie Dupree, who became a star
through her clever work in this play.
shows that she earned the honor by
right. She has a strong and appealing
personality and she makes the fantasy
seem real throughout. Even when the
audience knows that the trials and sor-
rows are dreams. they are still felt as
real, and when at the last the dream is
over and the Lady Elizabeth becomes /
plain Elspeth, the American girl. once |
more, there is fine delight over the hap
piness she wins-fOr. of course she mar
ries the hero OF the dream melodrama of /
which she was the heroine