The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908, 1907-11-29
NEW PLAYATN NEWARK
BLANCHE WALSH I'M "THE
KREUTZER SONATA"
A Writer but Intensely Gloomy
and Sordid Drama by Jacob
Gordin.

There was little Of the spirit of Thanks
giving in the play produced at the Newark
Theatre for the first times yesterday aft
ernoon and night. 1t was a lugubriously
depressing representation and commen-
tary upon the sort of life which one might
find 1t possible to regard with grateful
ness only because its bitterness had never
been experienced. That the play, which
its author. Jacob Gordin, the most sue
cessful of New York's Yiddish play
wrights, has named after Tolstoi's novel,
THE Kreutzer Sonata was a truthful
and seriously thoughtful picture of life
and manners that 1t was ably written
and skilfully put into dramatic form !;
that it was well acted by Miss Blanche
Walsh and her associates. merely served
to heighten its unhappy effect.
The gloom, t~hick-enveloping players and
audience, settled down in the very first
act wherein the sordid bargaining of a
woman's body and soul for money was
anything but a cheerful overture. The
fact that 1t was the woman own father
who was selling her for price certainly did
not help matters. Indeed, the effect oil
this was merely to ALLEVIATE sympathy
from the father-the stern old Jew. who
most of all the characters, was possible
of veneration-when his time Of trouble
came later. and. Lear-like. he confronted
the ingratitude of those his bounty had
benefited. That the whole repellant trans
action was made merely to render the
oma respectable in the eyes OF con-
%vention, after she nae given herself to a
lover who had afterwards killed himself
and left her with child, was not addi-
tionally instrumental in the audiences
edifcation or the uplifting of it's spirits.
Neither was the agony relieved in the
next act, wherein the whole kit and
Doodle of the dramatls personae are
transported from Russia to New York,
and the author begins his satlric and some
times amusing comparisons of moral Rus
Ha and immoral America. 1t was not ex-
pected that a marriage of the sort out
lined In the first act could be productive
Of anything but unhappiness, and expec-
tation was most assuredly not ~disappoint-
ed. That Gregoire, the artist and mu-
stefan, who had married his wife knowing
that she was about to give birth to an
other mans child, should feel little pa
ternal joy In that small boy was not I'M
natural. But this fact did not make 1t
any ~pleasanter when Gregoire beat the
was 1t any more enjoyable to witness the
brutality and insults which Gregoire
heaped upon his wife.
And when. in the next act, the intrigue
between Gregoire n his wlfe's sister be-
gan to approach elimination, the disgust
at the wretched groveling of this man
Gordin the playwright, in the nasty, faint
ed mess of society's dregs began to near
a point of nauseation. One was glad when
the end Of 1t all for this unfortunate fam
lily, this house OF too much trouble" came
in the last act, after the wife had dis
covered that her sister had borne (think
OF the situations rottenness) a child to
her husband. That the playwright had
made the end all but inevitable did not
detract from It's sensationallsm, when the
long-suffering wife leveled a revolver at
the two sinners and shot them both dead.
Miss Walfh played the wife, who a
sinned and atoned through long years of
suffering, only TO become a murderess at
the end. She played the part with an in
telligence, sympathy and earnestuegs
worthy of q better cause. Her expression
Of pain and suffering was moving, and
she made the sensational finale of the play
so realistic and powerful hat the au-
dience remained in the theatre clapping
and cheering her for SONG moments after
the curtain.
methods more physical than spiritual She
needs action to be at her best, and for
this reason her manifestation OF patient
suffering and endurance in much of the
play was less poignant than that Of Mme.
Berthn Kalich in the same role. Miss
Walsh's Interpretation was more obvious
ly dramatic, Mime. Kalich's more subtly
intellectual. One remembers the play of
agonized emotion on Nine. Kalich's fea-
lures the more ViVidly because In tenn
permanent and personality she was the bet
ter fitted to feel and make her audience
feel the emotions she depicted. Within
her limitations. however. Miss Walsh's
acting was beyond criticism.
The others in the company were compe-
tent. George Sumner gave a digniied and
forceful Interpretation of the father of the
family. William Travers was excellent ms
a fiddler, father of GreRoire. and with Miss
Jessie Ralph, as his wife, supplied all the
comedy there was In the piece. This old
man figured in an amusing hit Of satire
unon the dominance Of unions upon music
and musicians. Others who appeared were
William Wadsworth. George w. Howard.
as Gregoire; Virginia Bray, Alma Kruger
aud Jean Patriauin.
The Kreutzer Sonata" will be the bill
at the Newark tonight and for tomorrow's
two performances. Those who like a
morose and morbid play will do we'll TO see
II. Most of MS. however, prefer a drama
that has something more agreeable than
adultery and murder for a motif. These
things occur in real life. Of course, but
they are bad enough there. eaven knows,
theatre. The Influence Of tragedy, genuine
tragedy elevated to a high plane Of thought
or poetry. may be Christening and emo
bling. hui not such a sordid and dismal and
hopeless representation Of life as THE
Krentzer Sonata" II Il teaches US any
thing at all. this play teaches the diaas-
Of IoveleFs marriage and Of mari
tai inhdelity and the old. old lesson that a
woman who sins must pay a fearful pen-
atty. But we don't need to go TO the
theatre and crawl In the muck OF The
Sonata to discover that.