The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-11-08

ably true. Since Boucicault's dramat- ization of American negroism. I douhe if less than hundred plays have con- tained real or supposed negro blood in what chemists call an attenuated dilu- tion. James A. Herne, away back when he was James Ahern. enacted vivldly yet unappreciatively a mu- latto Othello in q drama whose author I don't recall. The Bartley Campbell who went mad with cratic genius turned out very popular play with . quadroon heroine My brother in the Lord, the very reverend Tom Dixon. has lately made 6 big lot of money by putting a half-negro politician on tho stage as q presumptunus lover of an entirely white girl.
 No one has dared, in play or novel, though to exploit miscegenatien as c desirable thing, or even exeusabie un- der the most sentimental eireum- stances. In the last Presidential cana- paIgn before our civil war, much ado was caused by e pamphlet setting forth that slow but sure absorption or negro blood in America by intermar- rlage between whites and blacks was desirable. The author deemed 1t pru- dent to remain anonymous; and I sup pose that the modern dramatist who initiated Shakespeare by joining brown otheilo and q white Desdemona In wedloek wouldn't be socially well comed in the North. and couldn't make q tour Of the South in comfort. Still. I say, that there isn't much use in any more octoroon plays, unless some very adventurous author can persuade manager to put on the stage an Afri- can bride or bridegroom with Cau- caslan mate There would be a big row about 1t, beyond doubt, but out of 1t he might come with his life and q fortune.
 The posters don't Haunt q gang of burlesquers as the Devils Darlings. but they are quite as wicked as that by name, and l found In their show crude limitations of recently popular perni~ cious things higher up on the stage. Tho leader of the company is--weus call her Satanella; and the play might be entitled "The Soul Kiss of Salome." Coherency isn't needed on this low the- atrical level. The starred actress ls ono of those stalled stalwarts whoae face has hardened to brass. whose hg- uPe has widened in conforming to the breadth of her way to tophet, and whose voice has become sirenic like a lighthouse horn of danger rather than a lulling call to evil. She comes forth firstly as the catanic cuss in travesty of the drama. '"rhe Devil" except that she tempts mortals as a woman; and she doesn't disguise herself as . normal mortal, but shows horns in her fluffy hair and a tai! whlsked out from under her short skirts behind. After behaving awhile like the devil, she takes q motive from "The Merry Wid- ow" and values maddeningiy with an enamored chap; and he seems to be the sort of an idiot whom a twiee-as-oid woman can enrapture with brRzen au- dacity in lieu of glriish charm; so the famous waltz is danced with acrobattc stunts. The big woman throws the van to her and. when l saw the perform snce. needed the request from the gal- lery to make a monkey of him"
 SaturnaliA of the Devils Darlings doesn't stop at that There are other congenial things in current theatricals for her to utilize. She has the play of The Soul F6lss." if not for herself then by proxy of her manager, and when as a dsvilene she has got grip on her victim in a merry widow waltz. shs subjects him to a soul kiss that challenges the record for endurance. Yet the fellow won't deliver himself to thls composite of feminine devil, mer- ry widow and soul-klsser. even though she focuses on him a concentration Of three plays temptations. One hope re- mains to her-Salome. She rstires be- hind the scene long enough to shuek her ball costume. When she comes back ahe Is as bare as--but hold on. I won't risk tnaecuracy It may be thak Satanelia wears a film of skin-tighe textile under her strings of beads. though it doesn't look so. and all ] could discern in the way of fabric waG hesh-colored Still. a Brooklyn bor- ouEh manager, not before but after week of money-making with one of the Salome dancers, comes out with the ex- tenuation that woman was not truly bare in cool October. as she had been on q Broadway roof garden In warm August, but had fooled the spectators of Beecherville with 8 oounterfeit of cutiele that even experts in the front seats accepted as genuine.
 won't assert that Satanella's nudi- ty is real. Indeed. when I consider what 'orty to fifty creasing, fatting and blcmishing years have done to her I am ready to believe that she is tight ly encased from neck to heels. Not to toes. though. for her feet are as boldly bare as her face, and as careful ly painted Thus actually and descrip- lively denuded, Satanelia dances aa saIome--not for the ghAstly head of John the Baptist, however, but for the noddle that had just sense enough te resist her as a devil as a merry widow waitzer and as a soul -kisser. but not a Salome dancer. Thus, one may get eight dollars value-by market quota tion--for fifty cents by going o& Broadway as I did, to a matinee.
 Franklin FyIs4