The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-10-18
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ly a millionaire ydchtSman, on whose
vessel your honeymoon trip ended in a
wreck. out of which you were saved
and he supposedly lost; and that your
first husband isn't dead, after all, but
lives with all recollection of himself
before the disaster knocked out of his
brain; and he comes to your second
husband to haye his memory restored
by a surgical operation. You are in
your drawing room across a hallway
from the laboratory in which your
present spouse is about to restore
knowledge of the past to your former
mate. The operation has been success
full so many times that you can't doubt
it will be so this time. Within the
hour the surgeon and the patient both
viii know you are the lawful wife of
the one you hate and merely the moth
er of children by the one you love. AS
a distracted wOman-which is to say.
an emotional actress in the room visi-
bic TO an audience-What will you do
about it? Nance O'Neil sits dazed by
what impends. gets up to pace TO and
fro in agitation; tries to get into the
room where the surgery is going on
and stop it, but is locked out: ejacu-
lates incOherently and gesticulates aim
lessly; finally resolves to run away and
hide from both men, so that while the
one she loves can't find her, no more
can the one she loathes. Nance makes
Agnes over six feet in height, with a
face not handsome, but mobile, and |
powerful voice modulated by culture. |
In the fashionable gowns of this hero |
Inc she is a sight rousingly pictorial
What is the upshOt? oh. the super |
fiuOus husband dies under the desirable |
husbands surgery. neither knowing |
what the one would recollect if the /
other restored his memory. The play |
ends so abruptly, with the announce |
ment of the patients death on the OPP
Grating table that the people are re-
luctant to quit; for they would like TO /
know if the wife tells her surviving
husband about the husband who, as /
the surgeon deplores. is the first sub /
jet to dies under his hands. With all |
its odd originality, this drama has re- !
to familiar fictions. Agnes |
is offered in the matrimonial markets |
of Europe by her SOrdid mother-as in |
Dora; she cOldly repulSes the ardent /
man she marries as in THE Forge I
MASTER" and she is appalled, by the |
return of husband thought dead as
IN "Enoch Arden" Who's carping? |
Not I. Agnes" is a good drama that |
misses being great.
x X X
The Smiths write two dozen PLAYS |
per annum- l guess so without stop
ping to count them up. The plays are /
not plays in the sense of being dra-
matcally complete, but are the words |
in prose and rhyme-sometimes poetry |
for musical composers to set to mu-
sic. or comedians TO utilize for their
Actors in comic opera and /
song -and-dance farce go to the Smiths |
for stuff" as the slang of the bust
ness phrases it; and the stuff may
strike you as stuff indeed as well as
nonsense; but don't let's be unjustly
abusive. There are two of these Smiths.
Harry B. and Edgar, of consanguinity
unrelated. The libretto for "The Gold
en Butterfly" a success in comic opera
in Broadway this week. is Harry B.
Smiths, and my first thought while
to its music as sung triumph |
antly. was that Reginald DeKoven. the
composer. might we'll have hitched I'D
with more original writer. However.
DeKoven is no novice. and l stirred
up the gueSsery ganglia in nv brain |
for reason why he let his score go
with libretto based on the staIest two
Ideas in stage musical fiction; that is
TO say, sudden substitute for a
cranky prima donna winning a victory
by hitherto unreWarded merit and
composer OF as yet unrecogniZed genius
recovering his original opera from a
plaglarlstic rascal after its victorious
LISt performances II even a famed
dramatist turned out a play with that
substitute singer and that plundered
composer for its hero and heroine, no
would read it beyond the
point where he discerned the nature of
the plot.
Why, then. does 1.-THE Golden But
terfiy' get into Broadway. at a pre
paratory outlay Of $50. 600 to $40 OO0
with those old chestnuts roasted over
again? Answer: The Smiths are sure
smiths at hammering old metal into
new shape. No other Smith than Ed
gar or Harry could put the substitute
soprano and the plundered composer
On the stage once more. A second idea
N this show that's frayed and battered
oy long use in to derive romantic
title from something impertinent. There
S no golden butterfly. You'd sur
Mise, Ell? that the heroine is a wealthy
leiress Hitting and f1uttering like that ,
gay insect in a garden of social exot-
cs. Not so. The name hits nothing ,
'ut the point that a stolen opera is ,
mentioned in the main opera as THE
Golden Butterfly" without telling why. !,
No play ever yet went we'll without :
liscernable things to make it go One ;
# these in THE Golden Butterfly is /.
he pleasantest music that Reginald ;
)ekOVen has written since Robin
Hood" 1t is customary to throw y.
tones at DeKoven as an echoist of /,
ther mems tunes. He makes the chief i,
Louis Harrison. in The char
Lcter OF plagiariStiC composer. sing
lalf a dozen familiar old melodies
new through small altera-I !,
ions in time and tempo. Ear scratch !