Connecticut western news., 1908-11-19
TheWOrId Moves On

loH 1noTle-liS Tedl naIne WaS llm- othy Jenkins-was to leave the stage to engage in commercial pursuits, not only the theatrical profession, but all true lovers of the play, stood agog. Thorne, though but twenty-three years old, had risen to a high rank as an | actor. And now, on the very threshold of brilliant career he was to sink out of sight i'll trade.
 Nc reason was given for this re- markable step, which was known only to Thorne himself and one other. He loved strict member of the Presby- terian church, and she would not mar ry an actor. Forced to make choice between her and his profession, he chose her.
 Thorne resumed the name of Jen- | kins, married and went to Australia, where he accumulated a fair fortune. Thirty years after his marriage he re- turned to America on business, leaving his wife and family in Melbourne. On the steamer he met company of play CTS, from whom he borrowed a num- Der of printed plays with which to amuse himself on the voyage. Among them were several by which he had won fame. Before the voyage was over he was eager to act.
 This relapse troubled him. His wife had lived in fear of 1t all their mar ried life and lad parted with him re- luctantly. fearing that when away from her influence he might be tempt ed to return to the stage. True, she had lost her prejudice against it, but considered that any such return would be unwise. Her husbands business needed his attention, and the rowing life of an actor would break up their home. For this reason she had kept him away from the theater.
 But the more Jenkins read plays the more he became fascinated with his former life. Judging from some of those that had been written since he left the boards, he was of opinion that playwrights were dying out. At any rate, he did not consider their efforts equal to those of former days. He found little or nothing dramatic In any of them and pronounced them dull and talky. ..s' .#
 When Jenkins reached America he saw posters announcing that certain managers would present" certain the atrical stars. He wondered if talent had sunk so low that the most prom inent players must be presented by some man who couldn't himself take q walking part. In New York he found three theaters to one that existed when he left the country. Perhaps compe- tition was killing the business.
 On the evening of his arrival at New York man entered his hotel whose face was familiar to him. Aren't you Tom Abercrombie?" "Yes, but you have the advantage of me-" "Thorn- ton Thorne." You don't mean It. Haven't seen you since you were play. ing Hamlet here at Wallack's." Il wish I were playing there now" You couldn't; it's torn down. But his eye suddenly lighted-"I was ticket seller when knew you. Now run seven theaters. I have Hamlet on this very night at one of them, and the Dane Is in bed with grip. How would you like to try it?"
 There was a terrible struggle in the breast of MT. Jenkins, and he fell before a desire to again be Hamlet He would show these degenerate peo- pie the real Dane. He knew the part he had never forgotten it--no need for rehearsal. He would be ready at the rise of the curtain. What a pleas ure to galvanize an audience worn out with poor plays and poor acting!
 He found a meager audience, but was told that Shakespeare had gone much out of fashion with the average theater goer. Nevertheless there were those in the theater who loved Hamlet When he began his lines people looked surprised He soon saw that he must win his audience. something he had not been obliged to do in bygone days. At the end of the first act the man. ager approached him and said:
 Great Scott. man! Your Hamlet has grown quarter of a century older" How" Don't know, but there's some thing musty about it. Nobody does it that way now"
 Jenkins went back for the second act puzzled. In the third he made a supreme effort. All was of no avail. No one in the theater had ever seen Hamlet act that way, and no one want ed to view any such performance. Be fore the play was finished the theater was nearly empty. The star staggered to the greenroom, where the manager braced him with a glass of grog. Was 1t not Jenkins instead of the audience that needed to be galvanized? The next night the manager took the fallen star the rounds of the thea ters. In nearly all the plays he saw was something apropos to the times, having. he thought, no place on the stage, and most of them rotten" as Ee expressed it, though he noticed an absence of the coarse jokes of the Dlden time. But he was surprised to see that the comics wherein most of the raiment of the performing women had been dropped were the favorites.