The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-10-11

prohibition question is raised. But it
is not answered. George AIDE and May
Irwin, author and actress, are not
nearly teetotalaers, nor yet bummers,
and they don't him it tactful to
either preach or oppose total absti-
hence, and the fun they make is neu-
trail. May powders her yellow hair
white, ties a smallish bonnet under her
chin, wears a sober yet not unfashion-
able gown. and looks just the loveliest
of matrons in a city not too big for
morality to dominate; but the first
sight of her doesn't promise her GUS
tomary jOllity. as she comes to her huS-
bands law office to read, for his adj
vice, what she wishes to say in an adj
dress ieIcely denunciatOry of men who
publicly berate the demon of drink and
in private shake hands with him. Mr..
Peckham has d hastily at her en-
trance a bottle of choice Old whisky
sent him from Kentucky, when about
to sample it to the plaintive orchestra
accompaniment of MY Old Kentucky
Home" but he rises-Or falls-to the
occasion. and tells his wife to whack
the ~despicable hypocrites with her big
gest, hardest, knottiest club.
= x X
That starts the merriment, and at
once the action loses all the freshness
of October and becomes May IrWinian
with genial warmth. ! suppose that in
Clara Morris emotional prime she
might have said Please pass the pep
per" in a way to choke with sobs all
at the table VINO nance TO nave their
mouths full of gObs. Anyway. May
sent me into laughing Mysteries. the
first time I saw her (t was in sketch
with her sister at Tony Paster's-the
Irwin Sisters, May and Flora') by
remarking. IF l had missed itr' Her
JUNCTION was already fat, and the thing
her width might have missed was a
narrow stump. 1t wasn't what she
said. but the way she said it that con-
jured up a picture of the funny bump.
So it looks easy for her, in this new
comedy, and I can't think it is hard,
for her to strain the vest buttons and
corset strings of an audience with a
| jealous prohibition wOman'S uninten-
tional jag. AIDE writes ii out that Mrs.
Peckham on discovering the whisky
bottle opened on her husbands desk,
with two glasses holding three-fnger
drinks from it, has a fainting fit. A
young man was licking his chops for
the whisky devote his glass to the re
ViVal of the unconscious wife; then
empties the husbands glass also into
the mouth that would whis-
ky. even if it was venerable with the
mellOWing of a thousand years instead
of twenty; and when the dear. sweet,
te~etotaliStic old LADY awakeS she is well
SoUSed. The famous TOodles of Owens
and Clarke was gross: since him 1 have
seen hundreds of comic tipsy scenes,
and some neat ones by women; but
Mrs. Peckham's carouSe beats them
all for mannish maudling excused by
womanly grace. She says little, but
expresses much in quiet %pantomime.
and when her husband says, You are
the only person who has drank from
that bottle replies dazedly. with a
tongue seemingly too big for her wide
mouth: That sho? An the a~ch-trange
tch-ing ish, I dom feel it a shingle
mite" That's the finale of Mrs. Peck
hams Carouse." which is a short play
given in the bill with The MoIlusc."
X "
If the main mi in a play is a rural
list, he is apt TO meet his affinity in the
shade of the old apple tree, and may
be an oak or an elm, but not of late
years a chestnut, nor a peach, because
slang has spoiled their foliage for low
ers' cleaning. The pair of afinities
who give value to "A Gen
tleman From Mississippi" are first seen
together in the glare of q newspaper
interview, and what is more peculiar
about them is that they are not the
man and the woman of the story. but
an elderly. ~slow-going southern senator
and a youthful, alert, northern report
er, who make such an instantaneous
hit with FAC other that their quick.
fast friendship makes a doubly hard hit
with the audience. The success seems
a little more due to the actors. how
ever, than to the authors, but as Thorn
as A. Wise is in it with both pen and
makeup box. there seems no need for
jealousy. Harrison Rhodes, the novel
list. was his partner in writing this lat
est comedy of political Washington,
and Douglas Fairbanks the histrionic
member of his firm. The senator from
Mississippi arrives in Washington with
two daughters who, though from a
small city, observe Immediately how
obsolete the International hotel is, al
though their father. having had a
Mississippi friend who lived there thir-
ty years ago: is confident that it is
"the" hotel of the capital. The senior
senator from Mississippi and a north
ern colleague are awaiting a gullible
newcomer like green-goods swindlers
for a come-on.
Also a reporter from a New York
paper is there. too; a hustling chap
but genial and courteous in his owr
way to the southern ge'man. subj. The
senator is polite to the interviewer. Whc
meets him without a pad and pencil
in his hand, or a glib fmpertinence III
his mouth; so, at a first mention OF
New York. he extends his hand and
cordially remarks: "A great city. | be.
lieve, sub; the Vicksburg Of the
north" The boyish journalist. made
agreeable by Douglas Fairbanks, gets
on so well with Wise that the new
senator mi him for a private secre-
: tary, a plae2 ~et worth while to him