The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1908-02-11
LOVE, POLITICS
AND COMEDY IN
MANOR THE HOUR
Interest of BrOadhurst Play
Equally Divided Between
the Three.
POPULAR MELODRAMA
OF ROUSING QUALITY
The Play Well Acted at the New
ark-What the Other
Theatres Offer.
xmET HE Man of the Hour ticks
off a thrill or a laugh to

clNcIL DIS I'LL eSS 10 VI liSot
it is almost scrambled.
There is the strong and significant
dramatic narrative of the experience of
the young mayor who strives to be a
reformer to answer for the yolk OF the
egg. There is the thick layer of comedy
to represent the white, and the thin
shell of sentimentality to V all.
1t is not at all the particular brand
of ''hen fruit traditionally associated
with theatrical performances. 1t is a
fresh egg. o sound egg, the kind
marked extra special" that o have
to pay more money for and conclude
is worth it when it comes to the test.
Its yolk is n%ourishing and wholesome,
it's white Is pleasantly agreeable, and
its shell is negligible.
George ~Broadhurst Matched the egg.
Mr.. Broadhurst is n man of expert
cnce and skill in the art of theatrical
%incubating. He has brought forth a
brood of as fine young farces, What
Happened to JONES' why Smith Left
Home etc, as stand to the credit of
anyone in the farce-making business.
THE Man Of the Hour" represents his
first attempt at another and more
seriously important breed. 10 is a
first-rate and successful attempt, but
its author has made the mistake of
mixing in too many elements. He
hasn't been able to forget his early
training in farce and has intermingled
comicalities so equally with the ac-
Qualities of his play that the force of
the latter Is weakened. Add to these
elements Il generous measure of sem
~timentalities and you have an idea of
the sort of theatrical hybrid "rhe Man
Of the Hour" is.
In fact the play partakes much more
of the artiiciality of the incubator
than of the sp|ontaneity of nature. Mr..
Broadhurst has hewed too closely to
the line of theatrical tradition and
convention. He has filled his scenes
SO full of Incidents that they lack the
strength of simplicity. Does he pro-
duce an effect of high dramatic ten
sion? Then he must needs offset it
with comedy relief, according to the
theatrical rule of thumb. Not being
able to confine himself to the actuali-
ties so wildly and saliently present in
his central narrative, he has failed to
produce the drama of stark reality
and inevitable logic, that 1.-THE Man
of the Hour" might easily AVE been.
He has made instead a melodrama for
the people, and he has hit the bulls
eye of popularity in the dead centre.
THE Man of the Hour" is, in fact, a
theatrical ten-strike and it bowled over
the audience at TIE Newark last night
just as surely as it has every other
audience it has played to.
The realest of the actualities of the
play are Boss Dick" Horrigan and
Alderman Jimmy Phelan. These two
eminent politicians might be COM
posites of any number of men in sim
liar capacities in almost any American
city. H%orrigan loved Phelan as Bryan
loves retirement and Phelan loved Hor-
rigan as Roosevelt does a malefactor
of great wealth. Phelan was the boss
of the thirteent' and Horrigan thought
he owned the city. Phelan promised to
cross a couple of sticks of dynamite
under Horrigan before he was through
with him, and then take a walk around
the remnants, if there were any, to see
what was propping them up. Phelan
made good, too, and he didn't need to
indulge in any p~edestrianism, either,
for there weren't any props for Hor-
rigan when it came to the final show
down.
This, however, didn't happen until
after Horrigan had made things con-
siderably high-temperatured for the
young mayor, whom he had had nomi-
mated and elected in the mistaken
notion that he would do the right
thing" by Horrigan.
"Who put you where you are to-
day?" clustered Horrigan when his
protege became stand-ofish about sign
ing the perpetual franchise steal.
"Who made you what you are?"
"The people did. by their votes" al
lowed young Mayor Bennett.
"The h they did" snorted Horri.
gan.
But H%orrigan couldn't manage BEN
nett, for all his clustering and bully
ing. Bennett had taken an oath of
office and he stuck to 1t. He stuck to
IL even when they tried to bride him
with the governorship and to threaten
him with an exposure that would prove
his father a thief. He stuck to it ever
when they misrepresented him to the
girl he wanted to marry, and she, in
consequence. had promised to give heI
heart and hand to another. He stuck
to his duty against love. ambition and
Pride, and in the end he won out.
Horrigan vas game, though, and took
his medicine like a man, even when
Phelan reminded him that he had put
him away, as he said he would. They
were certainly the real thing. both OF
them, and their talk was racy of the
character back OF it. Robert Fischer
played Horrigan and Harold Russell
Phelan, whose heart was as warm as
his political sense was shrewd, and
his humorous sense keen and saving
Mr.. Fischer did not throw himself int
the role OF Horrigan nor realize thai
p~ersonage's individuality with quite The
completeness with which the late Franz
MacVickars used to embody it; mol
was Mr.. Russell quite as dryly humor
ous-he laid his colors on a bit too thicl
las George Fawcett. But they mad,
both characters highly picturesque FOL
all of that.
Orrin Johnson had to work hard Il
make one believe in the mayor "a
something more than a Sunday schoo
boy, but he succeeded. George Stale.
was a properly undesirable citizen u
the scheming %financier. and Thoml
Meighan fought him hard for place II
the same class. William Deming len
breezy personality to the role of tn
young man with the Georgemcohal
slang, and Samuel Hunt, as the hen