The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-11-01
PRESS AGENTS PROMISE.
"The Man of the Hour.

Slang is getting to be the great
drawing card in the drama. II any
aspiring young playwright wishes to
get the ear OF the managers, let him
speedily acquire a racy slang vocabu-
larry and work il with some show of
fitness into either a playlet or a play.
and his market is made Part of the
typical Americanism of The Man of
the Hour" which win be seen at the
Salt Lake theatre the first half of the
week, it's atmosphere so strongly sug
gestive Of the present day, or, rath
or the present hour. and much of its
comedy appeals are based upon the ir-
reverent delight Of the average Ameri-
can in ready. fluent. graphic slang. Mr..
Broadhurst knows his public well. His
experience in writing farces has given
him & facility in writing dialogue for
the comedy scenes that is alive with
the quick. incisive cut and thrust hu-
NOR with which the American business
man who habitually converses in
language teeming with slangy tropes
and metaphors. meets his foe as well
as his friend. For humor is so much
part of the mental equipment of the
ordinary American that he is prone 70
use humorous slang in his grimmest
moments. Alderman Phelan, il will be
remembered, was just as amusing when
he threatened Horigan as when he
blandished the ladies. For Broadhurst
only employs slang that has point to
IL. whether of wit or humor. and al
though the house laughed gleefully
during the exchange of threats be-
tween the two bosses. the interviews.
none the less, had the air of being in
deadliest earnest.
Phelan's lines are a liberal education
in the slang of the moment. Let me
put you wise" he says. and the de-
lighted chorus of masculine response
IS evidence of how men love the argot
of the street and the mart
There are many vigorous expressions
used by the vigorous Municipalities
that make up the characters of The
Man of the Hour" that are not slang
but are OF so much the nature of it
that they promise TO become so. We
seldom pause 10 consider the origin of
a siangy expression that tickles our
fancy. but many one first emanates
from some such character as Alder
man Phelan, who, it seems. has pro-
totype in a we'll known Hibernian poll
tician of New York. Phelan never
stops for word. and bristles with fig
ures of speech that are apt enough to
pass into current slangisms. Hell
be as welcome as the typhoid fever"
he says. referring TO his arch enemy,
Horrigan: and he describes the graft
ing bill fathered by him for as crook
eder than a footpath through a pine
wood
Horrigan does not deal so largely in
slang. but he gives out the various
conclusions that he has reached con-
corning human nature and life in alb
rupt, uncompromising plunks of world
~ wisdom: ANY man can make any
unattached woman think she loves him
IL he only keeps at her long enough"
Referring to a candidate proposed by
a member of his party. Horrigan says
bluntly: He wears a monocle; that
kills him before he starts"
To the man who balks at a bride he
asserts. with the brutal logic of the
hriber: you'll have the money when
it's all blown over. They won't ask
how you get il. but have you got it?''
And in the last act. when his rich
confederate quails at the prospect of
indictment, Horrigan, who is a brute.
but is always game. says again with
the unanS Werable logic of the seasoned
CRATER for whom disgrace has no ter
rors: THE woods are full OF investi-
cations, subpoenaS and indictments.
but / notice there are id few rich
men in JAIL.