The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-10-25


in stagecraft. Maurice's spell of emo
tional suppression and forced pleasant
~ is followed by his Outbreaking de-
nunciation of his wife's paramour, and
the wreaking of vengeance through the
depreciation of copper stock What
matters it that the copper king goes
down. too? He is savagely gleeful over
the ruination of his hated rival in his
wife's love. Only the two men, per-
sonated by Gillette and Arthur Byron,
are in this peculiarly rousing episode.
which makes Samson" the seasons
best legitimately dramatic success thus
far in Broadway.
J: X X
Like previous dramas with plebeiar
husbands and patrician wives at vari-
ance. but in which affinity must ba
reached at the climax. logically or 9th
erwise. Samson" has a fourth act
weak by comparison with its strong
third. The way to happy denouement
is cleared by convincing the nifty bride
that after all. she has a dominant
spouse. and his belief that she. though
going TO a brOthel with her prOfiigate
lover. is not an adulteress. Gillette
has taken on. in this strangely vengefuL
husbands Samson who pulls down a
stock market to destroy his wife's lib
ertine lover, even though he is himself
crushed in the ruin-a far bigger job
in acting than he has ever before dared
to undertake As written, the man is
so brutally passionate in his love for
his delicate wife that she is in physical
as well as mental dread of him. and
Will not submit herself to him con-
jugally. | suppose that the author
meant the character to be gross, harsh
and brutal. Now, Gillette is essential
iy mental in his acting, and for him
to express the feTocity of the man-as
he does vividly-iS out of his line and
a good achieVement-that of an aes-
thetlc collegian portraying roust-
about Frederic De BelleTille, assigned
to the role of a humorous father, and
doing well with it. would make a like
lier Samson. So you can estimate Gil
lette's skill in making brain serve for
Drawn. The cast is noteworthy with
Marie Wainwright, who saves the aris-
tocratic mother from conventionality
Constance Collier. brought from Lon
don for the wife, is a handsome Jewess
with the emotional knack. George
Probert is glib as an almost slangily
American young Partisan, and Pauline
Frederick is admirable as a demi-mon-
dame. Usually don't list the perform
ers of play so much as that, and /
do il now to show the help given by
Frohman TO Gillette TO make a sure
hurrah for Samson"
Now as to Louis Mann's attempt in
The Man Who Stood Still" to pull
himself up to David Warfield's level in
The Music Master as a German wild
over in New York sorrowed by
daughter. At the outset the door of a
small jewelry store in the Bowery is
banged open, and a stormy girl whirl-
winds in. She is a I2-year-oId in size
in
frock short Of skirt and sleeves. her
bare legs and arms look like juvenile
slim limbs; but she swears with full
grown Oaths while, in rough-and-
tumble bout, she and a tramp claw
and clutch, fall down and get up. roll
over and over. and go out as they
came in. with the beginning and con-
elusion of the scrap invisible and IN
explained The little wretch berateS
the man with big damns. but | don't
know why, as she has nothing what
ever TO do with the story of the new
drama, whose action she starts so vio-
lently- II is asserted that her precO-
ciOus profanity is an attraction in
BoWery saloon. like a monograph or
penny peepshow; but assure you that
no SUM in all New York could if il
wanted to. keep such a child away
from the Gerry society a week. The
depths OF our depravity are not un-
fathomable by the plummets and lines
Of reformatory succor.
The play that begins so rough-rous-
lngly rs that isn't cheap in its 81 price
of best seats. or low in its avowe,!
moral purport. The real problem in
The Man Who Stood stir may be
TO provide profitable play and char
acter for Louis Mann. who has done
well with Germanized English diction
both seriously and comically: but Jules
tckert Goodman wrote it to illustrate
racial prejudices and animosfties in this
cosmopolitan city of New York. An
lrishman'S son leads a Germans
daughter astray. and a young Jew
wooes her hOnOrably. After much SUI
fering she shifts her love and her baby
from the son of Erin to the son of
Judea. The exposition of racial types
so il seems to me. is lacking in one
important particular. There is an Irish
father 10 deplore and denOunce the
amOrouS WfckednesS of his son. and
German father to oppose his daughters
Wedlock with an Israelite. but there
is no orthodox Jewish father to be
wroth over his sons marriage with n
Christian girl It would nave seemed
70 me. had | undertaken to write this
play for Louis Mann. that the role for
he now enacts. but the missing Jewish
parent of the Israelite sutton: for strict
~ orthodox Jews in New York still
perform funeral rites over offspring
deemed dead religiOusly through we'd
lock with Christians: and wouldn't
Louis Mann. whose friends agree with
him that he is the forthcoming Shv-
lock. be impressive in the portrayal u
Il modern Jew with a daughter welded
away from her people and her faith?
Instead. Mann enacts a slower more
dense type Of German than is common
nowadays in New York. whose antip-
athy TO Jews is trivial compared VIII
his resentment at being called a Dutch
man; that is 10 say, a HOllander: and
who is the plays title. The Man Who.
stood STILL in the sense that he STAYS
Obdurately stationary in these progress
siVe times Originally the drama was
named The New Genera ton" because
its young people put aside racial feel
ing. and young Irishman and an Is