The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-01-05
New Plays for the New Year
FRANK

guest at the Goodwin place on the
Thames, / have heard, when Maxine
Elliott was Mrs. Nathaniel c. Good
win in unity as well as law; and 80
Esmond's Under the Greenwood
Tree" may be taken as Esmond's effort
to dramatize her exceeding beauty. He
seems to have started out with the fact
mat all things passionately reckless
may be inspired by a Venus glowing
with the dark warmth of a living
sWarthy woman If Maxine were an
actress of emotional power. a queen of
Spain might be a first choice in her ex-
ploitatIon; but, Notwithstanding her
tall, erect stature and imperious air,
her most satisfactory acting is in the
line of gentle, genial womanliness. So
play for her had best be a blend of
intense romance and urbane comedy.
Why not make her a gypsy queen?
Not real nomad. suggestive of gar
hes faint on ungrammatical lips, and
of garments unperfumed even by the
recent soap of laundering-but a lady
of dainty delicacy adventuring in
gypsy disguise? So we have Maxine,
like EtheL for a little while grazing a
London house politely before putting
on their appearance of a quite moral
yet seemingly sordid social outcast.
Maxine's beauty is so richly capt.
talized in the play that her fraud isn't
perpetrated to earn a living, but to get
away from the tedium of extreme af-
huence. Men good and bad, men wise
and foolish. men who think they are
witched by her beauty alone, and men
who know very well they are after her
money, too-all beg her to marry
them; and she is no hater of men, as
how could she be with lips of lava and
eyes of fire TO indicate a volcanic soul;
but the right man to bring on a con-
vulsion Of her nature hasn't come
along, and meanwhile she sizzles and
steams until she can't stand il. She
must get away from the convention
alities of the town, and hide herself
away in the freedom of the country.
X !;
Again like Fitch with Ethel Barry
more, ESmOnd assumes with Maxine
Elliott that a mans sincere and dura-
bic love may be melted instantly at
the sight of a superlatively beautiful
woman. Wasn't il so with Romeo and
Juliet? Also, Orlando and RosaIind?
And if Shakespeare created such true
though silly lovers in a garden and a
forest, why shouldn't Esmond send an
impulsive wOOer to Maxine under the
green wood trees of England today?
Maxine hires a van from a band of
gypsies, locates it in a fOwery dell,
and sets up light housekeeping with
her chum girl and secretary. Young
Sir Kenneth Friarly owns the place.
and he comes to make the gypsies
move on; but the moon is shining on
the van when he raps at the door, and
Ilumines the beauteOus creature who
steps forth. No Juliet in a balcony
ever made a more enhancing sight
than Maxine as she stands in the door,
way. Ethel has to talk a little with
Collingworth in Bond street before ne
perceives that she is something better
than humbug soothsayer. But Max
inc brings FTiarly to her feet as
though lightning from her eyes struck
him down. He isn't senseless in one
meaning Of the word, however. all
though he may be in another: for in
stantly he is an eloquent wooer. She
makes him believe she is not only a
gypsy, but a thief, too, and devoid OF
moral sense; but he doesn't care a
d-n-that is his own word for it-who
or what she is if only she is new to
| love.
you are the first man to ever kiss
me, she says, after permitting him to
40 II ten minutes after their meeting,
| and 1t thrills me deliciously."
" SNAoCh II uttutu Dy Maxine and
1 triarly as urgently as by Juliet and
| Romeo; and before a night of various
incidents is over, they have agreed to
marry the next morning Thus does
Under the Greenwood Tree present
the most expeditions courtship that /
/ nave seen in modern fiction, and not
/ all who witness it are so enthralIed by
| MaXlneS beauty as to take it serious
| iy. It's intensity of rOmanticism doesn't
gee with its prOsaic time and place.
/ Lovely" say some, but more say
silly"
Maxine Elliott is her own manager
now; and I mention that so as to fix
upon her the guilt OF conspiracy tC
| buncO- She had the press agent tell
the newspapers that the gypsy van
would be placed near d swimming pool
| that Maxine would be seen i'm a bath
ing garb that would astonish; and
bare feet we're vaguely mentioned, too.
| Therefore, when a chappfe came down
from London, to visit her, and she
made him put on a gypsy's shOrt-trOu-
sered costume, without shoes or stock
| lnSs, some of us said to ourselves that
| she, tactful woman, meant to render
| her denuded feet and ankles idealistiC
| by contrast with the coarser ones of a