The National tribune., 1907-11-07
A G. A. II. PLAY.
An Emotional Play Which Has Scored a
Great Success In New York.


David Belasco, that very successful
playwright, has lately produced a play
which has for its dominant note a phase
of American life never before intro
duced upon the stage, Dramatic a fig
ure as the civil war veteran is to-day,
great as was the part he played in our
country's history, he has been almost
disregarded as material" by the novel;
ist and entirely so by the dramatist.
The life of the veteran now flows on
very quietly and unobtrusively; he has
little or no part in the making &C the
great questions of the day; yet about
his pathetic figure fingers the aroma of
great deeds, of heroic self-sacrifice, of
patient endurance of incredible hard
ships, which give him a unique and
most dramatic place in our civilization.
David Belasco has recognized this fact.
and out of little group of veterans in
an Indiana village, their G.. A. r. Post
and it's Commander he has woven a
play which has stirred the patriotic sem
timent of American audiences as no
other play has for many years. The
play is called 1.-The Grand Army Man."
and the plot briefly told is this: The
Commander of the Post, Wes Bigelow.
one Of the bravest of soldiers, is a man
of the highest ideals of honor and in
tegrity, simple. generous and big-heart-
ed. The sweetheart of his youth having
married another man, he himself re-
mains single, and later on adopted her
orphaned child, a little boy. On this
boy he lavisheS all the love of his ten
der, affectionate nature, kept out of
its own for so many years, taking the
boy with him to his veteran meetings
and confiding to him all his hopes and
aspirations which are bound up in his
little G.. A. r. circle. The play shows
us the boy at 10. restless, high-spirited
count of his lack of money; he is too
impatient and ambitious to wait until
he is financially able to support wife,
so, without realizing what he is really
doing, he appropriates $1,000 of the
Posts funds. thinking. of course. that
he will put it back before detected. Old
Yves Bigelow has an enemy, a Judge,
and it is thru him that the boys crime
is brought to light. He is arrested, and
his case tried by the wicked Judge HIM
self, who, without listening to the i'm
passioned appeal of old Yves, sentences
him to year in the penitentiary, while
his poor little sweetheart goes sobbing
from court. In six months, however,
the boy is pardoned out on account of
good conduct, returns to his devoted
| foster father and marrieS the faithful
HALLE" who. it seems, is no other than
the Judges daughter. 1t will be seen
that the play Is very simple. and the
plot quite hackneyed; nevertheless it
has a plain, rugged power which has
won for 1t an instantaneous success.
Much of this is doubtless due to the
wonderful acting of David Warffeld.
| who made such a reputation in the
Music Master" In the third act, the
scene of the trial, while Yves is plead
ing for his boy, Mr.. Warfield's acting
Is so real that the audience feels al
most as If it had no right to be present,
as if they had somehow come upon some-
thing too private. too sacred and touch
ingly intimate to be viewed by outsiders.
In this remarkable scene old Wes. who
at first does not believe in his boys
guilt, is finally forced to do so. The
passion of the honest old veteran then
leaps forth. and, seizing a thong, he
lays it across the shoulders Of the un-
happy boy, whose sin is shown to be
venial, with whock that rings thru
the theater. Then. instantly realizing
what he has done-that he has struck
| the boy, his boy, every hair of whose
head he loves-he drops the thong. and
takes the weeping lad to his breast.
declaring his intention to stand by him
thru it all. Mr.. Warfield's acting at
this part of the play is tremendously
real, almost narrowing. His face is a
study: it becomes changed and suddenly
| old; 1t is painful to see. The anguish
and passionate devotion of a strong,
fine nature are expressed with unsur-
passed power. In old Wes's appeal to