The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-02-16
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs

Miss NethersOle is a gifted and accom-
plished artist who shouldn't have
missed being great, even though she
lacked beauty 10 charm judgment.
You may have never seem q English
Madge Kendall or the American Agnes
Booth. If that is so. and you get
view of Olga Nethersole, you may ac-
cept Olga as much resembling Madge
and Agnes in many ways.
Probably Thomas E. Shea has trav-
eled your way; and you may have seen
him in "A Soldier of the Cross" as
well as the several older dramas in his
repertory; but do you know that he
looks and acts just about as much like
John Mccullough as Mccullough did
like Edwin Forrest? That is to say
Edwin was believing bull of berry
tragedy, physically massive and vocal
ly deafening. He had been a circus ath-
lete before going on the stage. and his
dramatic performances were reminders
I'm vim and force of his Sawdust feats.
John worked at a less muscular avoca-
ton. that of chairmaking, before pass
ing from amateur acting into Forests
company: yet he had a strong frame
and strenuous lungs; and after the
death of his model was an imitator in
diminUendO. Thomas resembles John in
face and form, but is less sturdy and
vOciferous: and so he is an Edwin For
rest twice removed. Thomas +. Shea is
utterly unknown on Broadway profess
siOnally: but so are half dozen other
excellent actors of the legitimate type
who are appreciated throughout the
country: the fact being that New
York's famous thoroughfaTe rates the
africa novelty above dramatic art, and
won't give any heed to the art unless
&c Cd oil rt-ith 10
Therefore, when Shea comes to the
Harlem district for a week. he gets not
a paragraph of newspaper review. even
though one of his plays has never be-
fore been acted in this part of the cOun-
try.
The Shea character in "A Soldier of
the Cross is Ajax a gladiator so
mighty that, in the arena at Pompeii.
he slays all the men and beasts that
oppose him. How Forrest would have
ranted in that role; and Mccullough
was very noisy in Roman Sladiatorial
plays; and Shea's Ajax Is a savage
shedder of blood. until converted from
heathenism by the prosecuted Chris
tian5 whom he is sent out to kill. This
drama by Eugene Thomas is not much
off a variant from the several in which
Wilson Barrett used to personate sem
y
tians, and fall in wicked love with their
maidens, who invariably converted him
TO their religion just in time to save
them from death or worse. But the
hero i'm "a Soldier of the Cross" is not
a monarch. or a patrician, but a bar
barian gladiator. and the imperilled
maiden desired ferociously by a tyrant,
is his daughter. It was at q quarter
dollar matinee that | was interested
Il h,
play. All the seats were filled, mostly
by women and children, and their be-
haviOr was such a contrast to the hub
bub that had accompanied a rough
and-ready melodrama on recent Sat
urday night that ] could scarcely be-
lieVe that / was in the same house.
There was no shouting or whistling, and
when hands were clapped it Was as
apt 80 be al some pious sentiment as a
deed of valor. And this assemblage,
like all i'm our theatres, was Astounding
in Israelites, for when the newly con-
verted and still unleaned Ajax spoke
hatefuily of the Jews. and his gentle
Christian daughter said, do not be-
rate them. for they kept alive worship
of the one God through the centuries
till Christ" there was an impulsive
burst of applause.
x
1
ity with stage value in it is TO utilize
the destruction of 'Pompeii at the eli
max. Ajax as a Christian is to be tor
tured I'm the arena of his previous PROV
eSs. He is in a dungeon deep under
meath that place of dreadful amuse-
ments, and his daughter is in an ada
cent cell. He is 10 fight impOssibly
against a lot of lions. and she is to be
burned alive if he is vanquished by the
L II,
cry from days of fasting, is turned
loose in the passage way by a sentinel,
and the gladiator is without weapon.
So what's the use? / had wondered why
these prisoners were fed by dropping
food through pipe; but / found that
the author knew what he wanted in |
the way of ancient Italian plumbing |
for. suddenly, what is that? Why, the |
rattle of a sword dropped by friendly !
hand into that pipe to fall at Ajax's |
feet. And whose is the friendly hand |
think you? None other than one of |
those belonging to an antelope of our
familiar modern woman of cheap melo- |
drama, the boss Villains bad mistress |
who at length becomes good. and frus- |
trates the evil designs of her para |
mour. Audiences recognize her by a |
red or black gown. scant of bodice and /
quite sleeveless. fancy that actresses
are engaged for these roles for their /
arms. as others are for extravaganza |
for their legs. This one glistens with /
the usual spangies of the stage adj
ventures of the present era, but her |
garments are in the style of A. D. 10. |
and her .denuded arms were right for
the period when sleeves were not |
known to POmpeiian fashion plates.
three acts she has thirsted for |
the blood of AjaX's daughter, because
Of jealousy, and II seems as though she
even hungers for the girls flesh. so fire.
luently does she show a desire to gnaw
the scenery. Early i'm the fourth act,
too. she sits in a balcony overlooking
the arena, and clamOrs impatiently for
The orgies of human sacrifice to begin.
It is by a sudden reversal Of feeling.
caused so far as is visible by a spot
light falling on her, that she is trans
formed from public foe into a secret
friend of the doomed prisoners. With
the sword she drops through the pipe.
A lax Stays the liOn-outside his cell.
though we can only hear without seeing
the deed; but it is in vain anyway, for
human guards are aroused by the COM
motion. and cut off an escape.
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