The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-13
THEA TRICAL LETTER
 OF FRANKLIN FILES

New York. Dec if.--There Is no other way to let you know all about the new things in new plays here than to take you summing In them. The Blue Mousse and The Queen of the Moulin Rouge" are expositions- of life beyond the lawful speed limit in New York and Paris. and in The Pied Piper" the spotless town of Hameiin has It's lid melted on by hot old time of explosive cussedness. 1 attribute the lapse in Hamelin's morality to, the temptation of pun. The vogue or the punster is bygone. but who could take his pen in hand to write an ex- travaganze on the legend of the piper who was pied" as they used to say of his nottled garb in Hamelin. with out making him ''pie1-eyed" Witn booze. as we say in New York1 So the piper pours in three champagne auaffs of a quart each, taking breath between but not during them Any way 1t looked like that: and what 2 the good of spelling dramatic illusions by discovering trick tankard tnat empties itself on the table?
 Before showing slums to you on two stages. however. l will let De Wolf Hopper and Henry B Dixey take you by the hands and lead you In all purity through half of The Pied Piper and all of Mary James Pa. First. then. we go with Hopper to the City of Innocence. This Is not 2 repetition of the tale of the magician who riddled a German town of its rats by turing them away with the music of his pipe, and then. being refused payment as q vermin extermInator. charmed all the children into a mountain. which closed them in forever. When tried in Philadelphia last season. the play was called What Happened Then" be- cause Austin Strong undertook to gratify juvenile curiosity as to what became of the lost ones. The rising curtain discloses Father Time. big of beard. wings and voice, speaking to Romance Poetry and Song. He tells the symbolic women what befell the youngsters after they followed the Pied Piper away. He founded with them a city where the music of his pipe would be potent to keep the in habitants absolutely moral unless unttl-weIl never mind that now. The point 10 get Is that a wicked woman enters into this utopia in a balloon and Introduces wine to the Piper after three teefotal centuries. His cumu- lated thirst is enormous, and he passes quickly from sobriety through exhll- ration to hilarity. and you know how unctuous are Do Wolf Hopper's souses.
 The whimsical conceit in Father Times charter of this town is that, at the end of each twentieth year, The Piper shall mate for marriage all the inha abftants who have arrived at age to Tnarry--with a solemn pro- viso that they shall generate children only Thus. you see,- the population should be kept down to it's primal number and purity Do you see any flaw in the scheme. No more did the Piper. He was surprised and annoyed when a wife, already the mother Of one girl. gave birth to twins--A boy and a girl; and at the next ensuing twentieth-year pairing off the problem arises what to do with the superfious twin girl. Father Time will destroy the City of Innocence if his plan Is deviated in any particular. Justs now the wicked woman from the outer world alights from her ballon with an ugly man. to whom she is betrothed. and a handsome young man. whom she aches to marry. The native extra maiden and the good looking travelling man instantly love each other. That provides enough complication for g better iibretto than has been written. but the tunes by Manuel--a brothe CT of Charles, the playwright, and.
 William the little actor who used to be with Hopper, are hrst-rate.
 When What Happened Then" was turned over to R. H. Burnside to be changed into "The Pied Piper" Marguerite Clark was held back awhile from a planned starring tour to en- act instead the twin maiden who makes trouble In the City of Innocence; for 1t was decided that the super huous girl should be just such an un-