The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-03-17
"The Spoilers" Makes Tremendous Hit
In New York.
BY FRANKLIN FHEs,

the manuscript aside for eight years.
i Ihen a London manager, who had
raised some ado with Ibsen's Ghosts
was In need of a disputatious play to
Follow. Shaw completed ''Widowers'
Houses" to supply what was wanted.
instead OF keeping his hero steadfast
as a leather of tainted money, he made
him join his sordid father-in-law in a
scheme TO get more and nastier money.
Inc authors change Of purpose in his
work is shown more plainly still in the
character of dismissed rent collector
a poor old fellow closely resembling
during the first and second acts-Dick-
ems pltiable old toymaker in The
cricket on the HEARTH" and Ferdinand
Gottschalk delineates him as pathet-
lcaliy as Joseph Jefferson ever did Caleb
RUNNER; but in the next act this old
man reappears, not cTinglng in tatters
as before, but assertive in fine clothes
ana gaury jewelry, for he has gone
into despicable landlordism on his own
account, and now he has an abominable
real estate scheme, in which he is
joined by his former employer and the
hitherto hOnorably inclined lover. So
the play ends without one of its indi-
Vlduals on the side of morality.
In Shaws other drama of the week.
, Mrs. Warren's Profession" the faint
ed money comes from houses vile with
vice. The New York police stopped this
play last year, court now let's it go
on, and we have proof positive that the
pubic doesn't banker for a nauseous
dish once cooled and then warmed over.
For the first New York representation.
with a promise of official interference,
the sidewalk price for a seat went up
TO $50. For the second, when there
was TO be no hindrance. the vendors
ran the rate down to dollar for a
ticket that had cost them two. Yet that
talented Shawnese and Ibsenite actress,
Mary Shaw, was to be the Mrs Shaw.
as before. and whatever appetite had
been whetted for the mess remained
ungratified. An uncertain business,
that of the Snowman, Perhaps in the
meanwhile the published play had been
read generally and had thus become a
story whose staleness stank Here as
in ''WidOwers' Houses there is a
daughter for a lover to reject on ac-
count of her parents method of making
money; and again the author throws
away an opportunity to derive a good
lesson from a bad theme: but instead
of that, he makes the young fellow
nothing but selfish, the girl repellantly
cold In her purity, and the unashamed
Mrs. Warren warmly emotional i'm her
plea for sexual depravity as a permits
sible profession for women. God help
the world" she says at the tag, when
everybody tries to do right
50
Three of Joseph Jefferson's sons.
Thomas. Joseph and William, went into
their fathers profession, beginning
small i'm his company, and preparing to
take up his roles when he should lay
them down. Thomas chose Rip Van
Wrinkle, practiced it little before his
fathers death, and undertook a tour
with it afterward. Bob Acres was al
lotted to William. That left no famous
Jefferson role for Joseph jefferson the
second, but he was to have Sir Lueius
O'Trigger, and he played 1t a few
times when the father presented "The
Rivals William and Joseph started
out last year as Bob and Lueius. and
stopped before long. as did Thomas
with Rip. Even if Thomas and William
rad possessed their fathers ability to
be exquisitely humorous with the two
rogues of Irving and Sheridan il is
doubtful if the public would have be-
lieved it So it is that Tom jefferson
no more enacts the Catskilrs village
'er-dO-well, who exasperated his wife
by mendacity and inebriety. escaped
from her to carouse with strange revel-
ers. and got so singularly drunk that
he slept twenty years; and William no
longer depicts the English rustic who
went To London town for variation of
sport, and got into a duel.
But William has shifted himself TO a
new play which is like rip Van Win
kle" to the extent of having a husband
who leaves his wife to go o. nights with
uneodly persons; and with William in
this piece is mis- brother Joseph; also.
son of the Dion Boucicault who
wrote for Jefferson the actabIe version
of Washington Irving's legend of rip
Van Wrinkle" Good stage material may
have been as scarce then as it is now,
but when found it was cheaper. JEFF
ferson paid Boucicault $500, and that
was all, for the play that lasted half
century, and yielded a fortune. Irving
didn't get one theatrical dollar. because
dramatic rights in printed matter were
not reservable; nor was there an in
ternational copyright law that had pre-
vented Irving from plagiarizing the
tale from a German original.
But let's come back to date. Play
ing the Came" with which William |
and the second Joseph Jefferson are !
striking out from what people regard, |
with hats DOTTED, as the Jeffersonian |
high comedy standard, is the thou |
sandth Frenchy farce in mockery of |
marriage. The authors are American !
journalists, to be sure-Cleveland Mof- |
felt and Hartley Davis-and the char |
acters are Americans sportively active |
in New York's Tenderioin. but there |
is an Ananias husband, with a Sap
phira friend, in the everlasting Partisan |
manner.
William Jefferson was in Paris once, |
and / infer that he was an observer of |
life there in It's swiftest velocities. My /
inference rests upon a story for which |
I can't Youch. 1t goes that the young