Los Angeles herald., 1907-06-09
The Weeks Bills

MAsoN-viola Allen in Twelfth
Night"
AUDIToRIUM-Calif in Pima
fore"
BELASCO-"Letty."
ORPHEUM-Vaudevill
Mizpah."
GRAND-"The Street Singer"
FISCHER'S-Burlesqu
EMPIRE-Vaudeville.
PEOPLElS-Vaudeville.
UNIQUE-Vaudeville
A FTER a week Of Mrs. Fiske and
~ her superb company in an Ameri-
can play beside which the impor-
tations which it is so popular to foist
upon us seem but mediocre trash, one
who loves the genuine drama and hopes
to see it again attain to it's once high
. place is moved to feel encouraged.
Certainly all cannot be lost in a mael-
strom of commercialism and dross
when there stands out as a beacon such
a comedy as this, given so fault
lessly
The writer believes that the drama
has a mission, and for good, too, the
same as has any other great and
powerful appeal to the mass OF the
people. From the first dawn of civiliza-
ton, dramatic performances have Deen
a potent force in the betterment or the
race. In ancient Greece they had their
genesis, and ever since nations have
been helped on their road to progress
and individuals have been instructed
and vivified by stage presentations. At
no time in the records of humanity has
this not been true.
In the main, drama has kept up with
the demands upon 1T and has mann
tanned it's high estate-so high that
more than once the church itself mas
not scorned to make use of its power
to impress strong lessons directly upon
the common mind And every devotee
to the mimic art lives in hopes that II
will ever maintain it's lofty station.
In these commercial days of money
getting, however, the drama hath verify
fallen upon hard lines. Instead OF
being an educative influence, a(means
of uplift or even a messenger OF grace
it is simply a method of exploltatloh
in the hands of few spectators VINO
have so financed it and manipulated II
that it no longer possesses SOUL
character or a life. 1t is a mere ma
chine, a drab, discredited and de-
bauched outcast it's appeal Is lost IN
its sensuosity; it's plea is smothered IN
its degradation of mediocre talent ana
fourth-luster sstars. No longer DO nne
players put oil fine plays for their own
satisfaction and the edification OF the
neonle. nothing now gets hearing un-
less 1t can be demonstrated mathe-
natically beforehand that 1t Will garner
in the coin. To such low state mas
the drama fallen that 1t is traVesty
upon itself and all it's luminous history.
But Mrs. Fiske and her splendio
courage have raised this one beacon
and have proved that this baseness
need not be; that real plays can still pe
given by real players, to real loVers OI ,I
the dramatic art, and that they Will
,neet with appreciation and applause
and incidental gain in goodly measure.
She has with superb daring faced the
powers that would drag her down 20
their own level, has gone serenely upon
her high course, and has Won Inc
Greatness of her achievement is all the
more accentuated by the difficulties that
have beset her path, the efforts to De-
snirch her and to destroy her work.
She has triumphed and she is entitled
to all she has won.
Beside the production of The New
York Idea" last week how tawdry ana
poor appear most of the offerings
thrust upon us by the coterie which
would throttle her. When has Los
Angeles seen so absolutely standard
play given in so artistically satisfac-
tory a fashion? When will it again be-
hold the like? Not, in safety may IL
he said, till Mrs. Fiske comes again.
And she will come again. She said
so Wednesday night when the writer
had the pleasure of telling her to her
face how delightful her week was. she
will have new play, she will have the
same glorious company and she Will
present it in Los Angeles, all the
powers of evil to the contrary notwlth-
standing.
And in the meanwhile she has set a
basis of comparison for her detractors
to equal which will long be untouched;
and she has taught Los Angeles what
to expect when first class" play is