The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-10-04
THEA TRICAL LETTER
 OF FRANKLIN FYLES

and politics. Their widowed mother Ia bright. gay and blonde with the inccnseouentail joys af life. Michael gets a nomination for the Legislature and expects to purify, exalt and en- noble, the making of laws. Arthur Cullen is political boss. who tells Michael that the price of his eandi- dacy Is S4.ooc for the campaign fund Michael's soul revolts at the sordid idea; so does his sister Mary's: and besides. they heveut the money; but their mater, aged forty, yet looking younger than her daughter of twen- ty. doesn't see the question from their aesthetic point of view. She Is sure that she can befool and bedevil accept her blandishments instead. Now there. you'h say, Is the making of 6 jolly farce.
 Percy Mackeye has no such trival purposes. He writes poetically. with his characters feet never fiat on the ground. nor their speech eolloquiaI. and their heads are in the clouds verbal flights of fancy. Even the utilitarian Cullen Is melted by love Of the mater-thlnking her all the while to be the flia~-to discard his ordinary vocabulary and soar into fantastic diction along with the four other percentages. Yes--only a quin- tette. Last week I mentioned four plays that were getting along with casts of six or less, and here comes fifth with Ave. and no change of scene. That means big profits--if the people will take Mater" as Q brainy joke in stage literature, a piece of pleasantly on a par with W. s. Gilbert's whimsical comedies, and let it sharpen their wits.
 AnR4tv fa haua haaa the mother, but she went away to get Australian dollars, and Miller cabled to Isabel Irving to come from Paris. His choice was lucky for the actress and the play. Isabel began to act at paly's so long ago that she may easily have the forty years ascribed to the mother. but she has held on to the blond beauty of her girlhood so re- markedly that she makes the merry widow look younger than the dark some daughter. as personated rightly yet gloomily by Hazel Mackaye. a sis ter of Percy. Isabel skips and am bles through Mater" wheadiinR Charles Stevenson, who depicts Boss Cullen as heavyweight politician so waited of his feet by the volatile woman that he takes a hope of win ning her in lieu of her sons payment of campaign assessment: wh ile Frederick Lewis. hitherto a player of old men. moons. mopes and declaims oracularly as the son with a socialis- tic grouch. The dialogue of the ma ter and the hlius becomes so like Hamlet berating his queen mother. as a matron who hirts as a pretended maiden with the politician. that the author deems 1t well to put Shakes pearean quotation marks on some oi it. Still. this is an original and very odd compoSition.
 During It's first act Father and Son" behaves like problem drama of labor versus capital The New
 Jersey villagers who gather at a post ofice are mostly discontented mill hands, and in an impromptu meeting they resolve to strike against theiI | employer. who on the spot def1es them to do their worst--or best--accordina ! to the point of view. The act endl ] without any exposition of the right.
 and wrongs involved in the contention i and that subject is not taken uJ again. The real question asked ana answered In Father and Son. ls whs
 is the sons father7 The author al