The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-03-10

, StgnlIy when he named his new play
The Mills of the Gods" Longfellow
/ wrote. The mills of God grind slow,
out grind exceedingly fine" Broad
burst would seem to have reached fur
tner back for an automatic quotation.
and, to avoid making free with the
name of the Deity, aScribed the fine
grinding mills" to ''the gods" of
heather mythology, rather than to the
one God of Christianity. There are
other hairs TO split; and as THE Mills
or the Gods is the only new play in
all the length of Broadway theatres
this week. why not make each hair
bristle with controversial bubble and
disputatiOn2 The textbooks of slang
make note of THE gods as designating
boys who sit in the top galleries of the
aires; they also define one of the mean
ings of the word "mill'' as a fight with
fists. Now. then. The stirringest of
the passages in The Mills of the Gods
is the one in which the hero and the
villain have a mill" such as would
enthuse the gods of a gallery, and
the villain is ground exceeding fine.'
Now. there you are All hope is that,
when the serapbooks of 1907 have gone
| brown and musty, and the name of
! BrOadhurst is associated with that of
Shakespeare in dramatic fame, this let
ter of mine may be found pasted in
among the annals of the American the
atre, and that l may be quoted as
recorder of the facts from personal OBJ
servation.
Seriously enough and quite consid-
eTately, Mr. Broadhurst has written for
Broadway a play with such a fist-hght
for its crucial scene as would. ordinar-
| lily. be expected to find soulful appre-
citation in the Bowery only. His first
writing of the play was tried in Chi
cago, under the title of 1.-THE Coward"
don't know how much, or in what
manner. the "mill'' figured in the
scheme of THE Coward" but in ''The
Mills of the Gods" it is the solution of
| the plays problem, the acme of its in
terest, the sum and substance of its
! dramatic value
First as to the physical collision.
Robert Drouet is the hero and Edgar
Seiwyn is the villain. Yes, the hand
somely honest Edgar, who was a wooer
| with Spanish-American ardor in the
original performances of Arizona"
With Eleanor Robson, and later the low
ing and lovely brother to Maude Adams
/ in THE Pretty Sister of Jose" is here
assigned to an impersonation of scoun-
| drelisn. Having accepted the bad as
| Segment, however, he conscieutiously
earns his presume bly, large salary. Drou-
ct locks all the four doors of a room
| " lCdNC HlAiiStll StCluSlOn WIFI Del
wyn. This is in the penultimate third
act. The Broadway audience realizes
that it is going to see a Bowery kind of
cOmmotion. The outlook for SelWyn
! is gloomy. He is outclassed in weight
by Drouet. If there were any betting,
| ii would be hundred to one on Drouet
until Selwyn is seen to pull a knife
out of his sleeve; and then for a brief
spell the odds might be even; but Sell
/ xx-Ur1sC IA he Will hn h
Drouet's with a bare fist; so viliainy
with sticker gets knocked out by vir-
| tue with puncher. and then a Broad
way audience-it was SO on the first
night, anyway-goes BoWery mad with
all the noise it can make with hands,
feet and mouths.
Nevertheless, "The Mills of the
Cards" is not a materialistic melo-
drama, but a play of ethical purpose
Intellectually wrought by an adept au-
thor. The point of it is that man may
be eowardly in the face of danger until
his latent courage is melted by some
powerful emotion whereupon he may
become brave to the limit of reckless
desperation The illustrative case is
that of man who, having served a
term in prison. and subsequently gained
a good reputation. is cowed, black
mailed and tortured by an ex-eonvict
ccmrade. Cravenly he submits, until
his love of a fond and true girl pro-
videS the Indictment to courageous de-
f1ance. Then comes the fight The play
contains many things to popularize it,
yet essentially it is a dramatic study
of cowardice and redeeming courage in
one individual.
Uppish drama is uncommonly album
dant in New York now, what with
Mansfield. Sothern and Mariowe run
ming through their mostly classical rep
ertoires, and Ben Greet presenting
Shakespeare as Written" Yet in all
this plenty of approved matter there is
none to describe as new Greet is Civ
ing THE Merchant of Venice" this
week full length. instead of stopping it
at the exit of Shylock in the trial
scene, as Booth and other star actors
used to do. because they thought the
play wasn't worth While after they
were out of it. Henry Irving staged
the comedy wholly. because he had FL
len Terry for a Portia to sustain the
interest in the absence Of the Jew: and
he beautified the action in her garden
with all his skill IN the use of modern
stage resources SO did Lawrence Bar
rett when he was making a rapid for
tune with Edwin Booth, casting himself
for Bassanio, with the beautiful Minna
X Gale for Portia. Do you recall MISS
Gale2 Barrett advanced her directly |
from Brooklyn amatelrisTn into con-
spicuous Professionalism; and her re-
tirement was as abrupt as her discio-
sure had been, for she married into
Equitable Life insurance wealth, and as
Mrs. Haines l see her often in audi |
ences on opening nights. Richard |
Mansfield and Edward II. Sothern fol- |
lowed the lead of Irving and Barrett |
by presenting the whole of THE Mer- |
chant of Venice"
Ben Greet does that, and goes further |
by adhering closer 10 the text But he |
is bit tricky He chooses Julius |
Caesar" Macbeth and AS You Like |
It, besides THE Merchant of Venice"
TO present '.as Shakespeare wrote /
them" but he doesn't risk Richard |
Ill" without the Colly Cibber interpo- |
lations nor any one of the Falstaff or !
King Henry plays. nor even Hamlet |
exactly and entire Moreover. Greet's
imitation of the sceneIess Elizabethan /
method of performance, IN which the /
stage was little more than bare plat
form. does not at present go much more |
than half way to accuracy. because he |
is using a modern stage i'm a modern /
theatre, and the Eliza bethan paucity OF /