The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-09-13

ager. Daniel Frohman has placed her
IN powerful play. THE Thief" to be
sure; but don't you see that criticism,
by audiences If not by newspaper re-
viewers. is apt for that reason to be
exacting? She faces the problem, too,
or how to win sympathy for a thief.
Her role is that of a wife who steals
money with which to buy finery to
wear. Her primal motive isn't vanity,
though, but a desire to retain her nus
bands admiring love; and, of course.
that takes away the sordid faint: yet
nothing less than intense emotionalism
carries the actress to success 1t is
cheering fact. too. that 1.-The Thief is
but one of four plays current in New
York that have misbehaving heroines.
yet none of them a Camille or a Lady
Isabel The top layer of the theatrical
public are acquiring dramatic culture.
~
I doubt of any American dramatist
has overlooked Betsy Patterson, the
Baltimore bride of Napoleon Bona
parties brother Jerome. in the quest for
historical material for the stage. Betsy
was a coldly, sordidly ambitious crea-
ture in fact, however, who made a most
unromantic row over her divorce by the
Frenchman, at the command of his inn
perial master. Rida Johnson Young, in
Glorious Betsy" for Mary Mannering,
lodges the dilemma by stopping the
story before the wedding. Instead of
having Betsy set her cap for Jerome,
she has her yield to his ,wooing in the
guise of an humble French tutor: and
the play ends abruptly with Jerome de-
flying the Napoleonic mandate by re-
solving to we'd Betsy, leaving out his
abandonment of her to become king of
Wurtemburg. The first New York per-
Torrance of the drama was at a matt
nee, with an audience of women in a
ratio of a dozen to one man. These wo-
men gasped and calculated their adj
miration of Marys Betsy. They got
scared almost to a panic, too. by fog
that they mistook for smoke. In a
scene where Napoleon goes aboard
French frigate to take Jerome ashore,
and send Betsy back to America, she
stands woebegone to gaze after her de-
parting lover An apparatus was in
stalled for the New York production
to dim the scene with steam that
should look like an enveloping mist; but
it resembled smoke. too. and a stam-
pede was checked barely by a voice
crying: "Sit down and shut up. 1t is
stage effect"
Probably you were not credulous if
in "Wildfire." that although her dead
husband had left her a stable of race
horses, she knew nothing about the
racing game. You probably would
laugh, as did the huge audience that
welcomed her and "Wildfire" to New
York with uproarous applause and
cheers. They laughed at the farce
when they did not laugh with it. And
the beautiful Lillian did not seem to
mind. Lillian had come back as beau
tiful as ever, and thinner than of late.
But she had unwisely sacrificed her fig
ure to fashion. All her gorgeous gowns
her sheath skirts, which in effect added
a naughty number of inches to her cir
conference. Yet at each change of
dress she was loudly applauded. with
Amy Held, glittering in the first row,
leading in the demonstration. When
she entered for the dramatic climax OF
the play the scene was the stable
which still bore the name of its former
owner. so that none of her unsportive
friends should know that 1t belonged to
the fair widow. BY this means the man
in control of the mare Wildfire was able
to order the jockey to throw the race
He told the boy that. as he turned into
the home stretch, he was to look to
certain window of the club house III
ne saw no signal. he must ride to lose;
if the crooked gamester wanted II won,
he would wave white handkerchief
A stable boy overheard this, and just
as the race was called, warned the real
owner of Wildfire. She and her VII
famous admirer. whom she had scorn-
fully spurned. watched the race from
the window together. The frenzied
widow wanted to make him appear to
wave his handkerchief. So the shrink
ing Lillian overcame her girlish timid-
ity and let him embrace her. so that
she could steal his handkerchief and
wave ii as though he were giving the
signal to win. And that is how Wild
fire won. with Lillian describing il in
a Lady Gay Spanker sort of eloQuence-
The audience liked Lillian so much.
as she nobly threw her modesty to the
winds, that cheers were added to the
volume of applause. She had to make
speech. Then she did the thing which
has always enhanced the charm of
the American beauty. She remembered
others than herself. Actors high and
low generally forget that there is such
person as an author of the play that
enables them to succeed: but Lillian
quoted the friendly uproar about her
self to thank the writer's of "Wildfire, {"
and to bring them out before there had
been a call for them.sFA ASS she dragged
forth the stout George W Hobart and
the slim George Broadhurst. she said