Los Angeles herald., 1908-11-17
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DICK BARRY'S "SEARCHLlGHT"
AT AUDITORIUM
Audience Is Generous and Young
Playwright Is Compelled to APP
pear at End of the Sec
ond Act

J he lITSL OI EIlClldIo
Barry's play, 1.-THE Searchlight,"
u was given at the Auditoriu mthea-
ter last night. Mr.. Barry is well known
in Los Angeles and in Monrovia, his
native city, and the event was of con-
siderable social Importance. The par
quet and boxes were filled with friends
of the young playwright, who were
generous in their applause and showed
their appreciation OF his efforts by a
persistent call for the author at the
end of the second act, to which Mr.
Barry responded, after the uproar had
continued for nearly ten minutes
Among those in the boxes were Mr.
and Mrs. f. K. Story, Mr.. and Mrs X.
W.. Burnham, Mr.. and Mrs. Charles
Weir, Mr.. and Mrs. Arthur w. Kinney,
Mr. and Mrs. Willis Booth. Mr.. and
Mrs Marshall Stimson, Professor and
Mrs J. A. Foshay, Mr.. and Mrs. Sid
ney A Butler Mr.. and Mrs. George
H. Stewart.
Is Well Acted
The play was admirably acted. for
first nights performance, and all OF
the Auditorium players were at their
best. Mr.. Lewis Stone as Sandy NC
Knight, a star reporter on metropol-
itan newspaper gave a finished por-
parts. with one exception, were good.
In 1.-THE Searchlight" Mr.. Barry evil
IDENTIFY was undecided whether to build
drama of incident or drama or
character. His combination of the
two, by which the stronger motives OF
both these play types are eliminated
results in nothing more than melo-
drama,
Newspaper Play
1t is a newspaper play, with the
scene laid in a big city Colonel Ar
thur Matson begins campaign against
"Keg' Slocum, the political boss. Slo-
cum is a very wicked man and Mason
is very nice man, with charming
wife and daughter. Slocum induces
Gleason, the managing editor of
1.-The Searchlight," to assign Sandy
Mcknight to the story that Mason in
tends to bride q councilman with $4,000
in his library at 1 o'clock in the morn
ing. Mason's daughter, Elizabeth, goes
to the Searchlight office to demand
an explanation of the stories deroga-
tory to her father, which the paper has
been printing. She sees Mcknight,
whom she has known before, and he
tells her that he loves her. and that
he will go to the bottom Of the story
and save her father.
He gains entrance to the Mason
home through a window at midnight,
the BlTlJ 6ApltllS HIS
sion, after she has denounced MIN,
and together, by a reflection in mir
ror they witness the arrival of the
councilman, and the transfer of the
money. This apparently incrimin-
ates her father, but Mcknight escapes
telling her he will follow the story to
the end and yet exonerate Mason.
He announces the result of his find
ing at a political meeting at which
Mason is being attacked. He has
learned that the money was given the
councilman to induce him to turn
states evidence and convict Slocum.
The crowd cheers and the ending was
all that 1t should be.
No Sustained Motive
The weaknesses of the play are fun
damental. 1t fails to grip the audi
ence largely because there is no single
sustained dramatic motive; Mason is
not clearly enough drawn to make any
one care whether he is vindicated or
not; Meningitis love for the girl is
directly alluded to only once in the
play, and there it is not made clear
that his success depends on his vindi-
cation of her father.
The character parts, with the ex-
ception of Patsy Burns, the office boy,
are not well DONE Pathological is the
only word with which to characterize
Miss Beatrice Noyes' extravagant por-
travail of the part of Emelyn Masters,
a frivolous young woman, who en-
snares the managing editor. Miss
Moves is not to be held altogether to
account for this, as her lines were by
far the worst of the play.
Reporter Indecislve
Mcknight is indecisive. In the first
act he impulsively tells the girl he
loves her and then trails off in dis
appointingly anti-climax about getting
the story or resigning from the paper
In the great housebreaking scene the
talk becomes something like Weber
and Fields II am going away from
here" dialogue. He thinks It's time
to go and then he thinks he'll stick
around a while and see the bride
passed
Almost, but Not Quite
The last act almost redeems the
piece. The situation undoubtedly has
the making of an exceedingly strong
piece of stage business, and the under
living idea is artistically sound, but the
weakness of the two preceding acts
still hold 1t back The audience has
no illusions about any of the char
acters and it really doesn't care wheth-
er Mcknight has the real story or not.
The strength of the play lies in its
faithfulness to life in the small mat
ters, in it's potentially strong plot, and
it's exceedingly strong and well de-
vised situation at the end.