The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-01-02
ZHEATRES
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Il ' Hast night. after seeing "The One Wo- man." the production of the Southern | ministerial playwright. And this re- | mark in all probability explains the reputation which the play had receiv-
 ed, and with which 1t came to Mont- gomery.
 For surely it has no intrinsic value
 to recommend 1t. Cheap. tawdry. mel odramatic work. the book of the play Is poor. the situations overdrawn, old quotations are overworked, and as a whole the play is presented by unsea- soned actors.
 l It is severe condemnation to say there is nothing worthy of favorable note in any play. The one Woman, as/the card stated, was suggested by the book of the same name. The lat ter. while not far removed from the mediocre. has at least the force of dea1- ing with q big subject. and of dealing with it. in spots, with considerable skill and descriptive ability. In the play. however, there Is a conspicuous depar- ture from the book The actors recite cheap rhetoric from the, rise of the curtain until it's fall. In it's action the play Is dead, except for one or two places. and then 1t might be better. For instance, take the closing scene of the last act. The heroine is &C., oused of having killed a man with whom the man she loved was struggling. The man she loved is charged with having tried to deceive the socialistic commu- nity of which he had been the leader.
 The "howling mob could be heard from the wings, demanding his blood and crying that she be made to pay 'The papers" The papers," are miss- ing. To save the woman the hero of- fers himself to the officers of the law. Then the villainess comes on the stage, and endeavors to hasten the end of the drama by testifying to his perfidy. At this stage things look pretty black for the hero and the heroine. Then loyal friend returns. dragging an 1n- dian guide with him who can solve the mystery. He had left the besieged house fifteen minutes before, found the hiding Indian. and literally carried him back. The Indian points out the >wo- man and another man as the guilty ones. He also finds "the papers" on the woman's person. In rage and fury she rushes from one to another crying at the top of her voice. 'Tts a lie; It's a lie." Then the officer takes her from the room, presumably to be handed over to the mob. The curtain drops with the hero and heroine hold ing hands in the center of the stage. Can this be beaten for cheap melo- drama? Has any other author exhib- 1 ited such daring before an educated audience? That a man whose reputa- ton as an author has gone even as far as the Rev. Dixon should permit | his name to stand sponsor for pro- duction of the kind is to be wondered at It is inferior to the Bowery at- traction. and would make a Laura Jean l Libbey novel appear IS a classic. It is not only In its plot that the play is weak. In all sense of the it, ness of things there is the same lack of a proper appreciation of the de- mands of the occasion.
 Transported from the shore of San Francisco Bay to the wilds of Alaska, miners are found wearing clothes of fine texture and of apparent newness. | The heroine and her party, seeking the ! man she loves. appears on the scene Tn costume which would do justice to | Fifth Avenue. perhaps. but which one would scarcely look to find in the Klondike. Patent leather boots and
 tailor made gowns are reported few and far between in the northern ter ritory, but the heroine has them, and
 the viliainess too, wheS she puts on her wedding gown. r.
 The scene of the greater part of the play is laid in Alaska The people live
 in a socialistic community composed
 of miners, whose chief diversion Is to
 bring in a pan of gold nuggets every | few minutes and turn them over to the | treasurer for the common fund. Be- tween times the miners engage in con
 versation of the wall, wall" sort, and infiict upon each other ancient and com monplace jokes. when they do not oc- cupy the stage the vilfainess Is plot | ting, plotting She is great on plot | ting, the villainess. l But the average mind is appalled, at
 the task of picking out defects in "The
 One Woman" of Thomas Dixon. In his
 book of the same name, he deals with
 a problem. In his play he merely ham, | dles melodrama of the cheapest sort and in the cheapest way. Fairness de- mands that praise be given to the
 scenic properties. which were superior and costly.
 Of the actors, Cor1iss Giles, as Prof
 Frank Gordon. social dreamer. the
 leading character, has fine presence That is as far as one could well go Tn
 appreciation. He seldom moves. deliv. l erin1 his lines from studied poses, not unlike the attitude he might adopt in going through a Delsarte exercise.
 Florence Fisher as Ruth Spottswood
 ''The One Woman" is decidedly better
 although not sufficiently so to draw un'
 due notice in a large crowd.
 Leonora Won Ottfnger plays the role | of Kate Ransom, the adventures. Al times her acting rose above the medi'
 ocre. At times it was fairly good. Bu' | through 1t all the tlnsel or melourd'
 matic effect shone unreal and uncon'
 vincing.
 The work of Austin Webb, as Mark
 overnan, the friend of Gordon, who i'
 infatuated with Kate Ransom, Is de-
 cided improvement over that of any
 other of the principaIs. Were he cas
 in A better part with a better play ht
 would have shown to real advantage HIs characterization of the part wal
 perhaps the strongest in the entire cast He proved his ability when he wal
 seen in "The Clansman.
 The play was frightened considerably
 by the work of three character actors
 who were very satisfactory Lydia Knott as Miss Susan Spottswood, ant Charles Frischer as Prof Otto Schmit'
 were decidedly clever and entertain ing. Both carried their roles well. Ira T. Moore, as Jacob Einstein. aided b.
 an excellent makeup, also left an ex cellent impression in small part.
 Two performances of "The One Wo'
 man" were given, the matinee beins
 attended by a capacity house, while th'
 evening performance was only fairly
 well attended.
 Jess Dandy in ''The Prince of Pilsen'
 is the attraction at the Montgomery
 Theatre tonight.