The Brattleboro reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1907-1912, 1908-10-23
A REMARKABLE PLAY.
The Thief, to Be Seen Here Thursday
Unusually Successful.

r The Thief, which Charles Frohmal
viii bring to Brattleboro for the inst tim
! at the auditorium, Oct. 20, is from the pei
of Henri Bernstein, Que OF the most in
genions and successful Of contemporar,
playwrights. Mr.. Bernstein is alread!
known for several plays similar in con
s,rnction, very similar in ingenuity ant
composition, to The Thief, but il is prob
able that for many year TO come he vii
be known in this country, as he still is il
France, as the author OF The Thief, de
spite his more recent plays.
The Thief Is IN three acts. IL observes
all the unities Of time, place and incident
The action takes place within twenty-fouI
hours. First produced at the Renaissance
theatre in Paris in December, 1907, The
Thief made an immediate sensation.
About the foibles, the ambition, the cum
ming, the love as deep as human passion
and as wide as human frailty OF wo-
man. The Thief is a woman's play.
But side by side with the great lesson
il contains for every wife, it contains rich
food for thought for every husband. II is
most startling human dramatic docu-
ment put on the stage in years.
The company which will perform The
| Thief in Brattleboro has been especially
selected from among MIR. Frohman's play
ers and has been rehearsed under his i'm.
mediate supervision in New York. The
performance in its effect and action is an
exact duplicate OF that given under the
authors direction in Paris, where the
play ran a year. No play put on in the
last % years has created the stir and re-
ceived such general appreciation as this
play from the French, whose story runs
as follows:
The Voysins, husband and wife, are Wis
iting Mr.. and Mrs. Legardes at their
country home. The Legardes have son,
Fernand, who is smitten with Mrs. Voy-
sin, and writes her the most ardent love
letters. Mrs. Voysin, who is young and
charming and who loves her husband with
an answering devotion, treats the young
mans amatory attitude lightly, as sort
of romantic hutter that will soon pass
away. She is good natured and good
humored towards him, but his attentions
have made no other impression upon her
than that they are the outbreak of a silly
sentimentality on his part He writes
her love letters which he places under the |
pillow of the bed in her boudoir, and |
leaves them around in other places where |
he knows she will find them. This letter |
writing leads him into a serious difficulty |
on which he has not at all reckoned. For
Mrs. Legardes has had some money stolen
from her bureau drawer, and as a detec
house masquerading as friend of Mr..
Legardes', has seen Fernand quietly
creeping up the stairs to the bedroom,
and has also seen him take something
from the drawer in question, he openly
accuses him of being the thief 1t is
Known that Fernand has had an affair
with pretty actress 10 whom he has
made presents, and it looks as if he had
tolen the money to meet the financial
requirements of the case. The Legardes
ire astonished at the revelation. They
olds, bit by bit, however, his evidence,
nd the father at last is convinced. He
ends for his son. Fernand has gone into
he grounds to recover the letter he wrote
o Mrs. Voysin, she having told him
where he would find them, unopened and
nread. Mrs. Voysin volunteers to go af
err Fernand when the fatner demands his
resence. She returns in q moment with
i'm. To the amazement of everybody but
he detective, Fernand confesses his guilt.
lis father furious al the young mans
isgrace, decides to send him away for a
eriod to distant country where he can
arm and repay the stolen money. OF
purse Fernand is not the thief The dis
very of the real culprit and the boys
lculpation come later on. Meanwhile
lie preparations for Fernand's Danish
ent proceed. Mrs. Voysin's kindly talk :
which she told him how futile his pas
on for her was, as she loved her husband
70 dearly to care for anyone else, has
1t had the effect OF quenching, or in
~ way subduing his love for her, The
lations between husband and wife be-
me painfully strained and continue so
It'll the moment set for Fernand's de-
rture Here disclosures are made that
it an astonishing but satisfactory COM
exion upon all the circumstances, and
e dramatist is permitted to carry his
Try to happy conclusion.