The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-05-17


lead of the melodramas which. after
a spell of exciting the gronndlings.
thrived awhile on ridicule but now are
suddenly rejected altogether. Mildred
Is emotional and Cecil is jodular, but
both have been heroines of many plays
located at royal courts. with brave
knights and fair ladies for, romantic
companions They now come to town
simultaneously with new plays of to-
days New York life, because the I'M
expected obliteratiO of brainess sen
sational drama" leaves two hundred
American theatres uncertain how to
entertain their audiences next winter.
Mildred. Cecil and others hope the
populace will rise to a liking for a
reasonable degree of merit i'm place Of
worthlessness, and they are willing 10
go down 10 meet popularity half way.
What / mean is that The PrOVider'
and THE Girl and the Detective" test
ed this week. MAKE a concession 10
people with To more than an inch be-
tween eyebrows and forelocks. yet bid
for the favor of those with skull-roOm
for intelligence. The two authors alike
keep pistols out of sight until the
third act. If you don't know what
that means. then you haven't been
aware of the idiocy of cheap stage
craft during the last half decade.
The Provider." That is to say,
the bread-winner of a family that has
10 pinch cents as though they were
dollars. Mildred Holland is able TO
get sympathy for a school teacher
with a foolish mother, a drunken faith
er. a silly sister and a Wilful brother
10 support; but Matthew Barry, the
author, has felt without expressing all
the pathos due from the Over-Worked
and under-rated "prOvider' She has
two lovers. though. one bank clerk
good enough to wish to take the bur
den off her, and the other a bank pres
ident bad enough to involve his rival
in a false charge of defalcation so as
to ruin him.
TIE story reaches, in the third act,
the hateful marriage of Mildred to the
wealthy sCOundrel as the price of her
true lovers immunity under the false
charge of crime, and her discovery
that, after all. during her torturing
honeymoon in Europe, he has served
a year in prison for the theft he didn't
commit A Sardou and a Bernhard
are needed for the writing and acting
OF that passage, Barry weakens at the
crucial climax. puts a pistol into ac-
ton, and makes Mildred hold up the
play as though il were western stage
coach and she a road agent. Too bad.
Still, The Provider' comes near TO
developing real value:
1.-The Girl and the Detective by
Charles E Blaney and j. Searle Daw-
ley, is another and more determined,
even desperate, endeavor To find out
what the masses will accept in the
stead of the despicable forms of melO-
drama: for Blaney controls theatres
and plays by dozens Dawley is his
saiaried playwright. and Cecil SpoOner
Is his foremost actress. The girl of the
play is Waif newspaper vendor
turned reporter by chance, Little Ty-
kie: the detective is a PinkertOn eX-
pert, Haggerty; and she and he fight
for and against a young journalist,
Tanner. accused falsely of robbing and
numbering his titled English uncle.'
The play begins in one of those
newspaper Offices that don't exist any
where else than on the stage with a
managing editor and city editor yell
ing orders. reporters and copy readers
equally VOciferOus. telegraphers, tele-
phoners and typewriters butting in
loudly, a dirty copy boy sassing every
one, and the whole operation of go
ing TO press" accompanied by the din
n a boiler shop. This misrepresenta-
lion in THE Girl and the Detective" is
not essential 10 the aIOusal of interest .
I is detrimental; for a noisy ado is
would hardly make an editorial staff
break silence. and so, when the time
comes for an outbreak of excitement.
nothing is left TO do in the way of
hullaballOO.
However, when a reporter arrives
with mere tip for a news STORY of
Importance, and cues for action come
by telephone. followed by a telegram
telling that a man of wealth has been
af &c nv 40
staff OF The Morning Wire gets rea-
sonably busy with efforts 10 get a
scoop" on rival journals. But il is
within fifteen minutes of time to close
the last page Then Little Tykie, who
has wired that she is on her way with
beat" by automobile, dashes in.
She has signed her brief message L.
T" The editors have wondered whom
the initials belonged to, and why their
owner hasn't sent the STUFF in by
wire but the smallish girl. in shabby
clothes. muddied by fast motoring
gives a quick explanation. Her ped
ding of newspapers has taught her the
utility of startling headlines, and she
knows the news value of what she has
CHANGED to see of the murder; but she
can't write. and therefore has ScOOted
desperately in a motor car with the
SCOOP" She has a rapid tongue, the
and while she talks in graphic slang, a
relay of writer's puts her STORY into
good English. TO be rushed page by
page To the typesetters. and the audi
enCe sees how a newspaper staff
catches the press in a case like that.
III YOU can't do new thing on the
stage, then do AN old thing in new
way The makers of THE Girl and
the Detective" fully resolved on dis
carding the guff-stuff and fiub-dub
tIat have killed sensational InelOdra-
ma" yet lacking an original device OF
excitement. have gone away back "a
Blue Jeans" and its buzzsaw that all
but cut the hero dead in two sections
In a hundred dramas that trick Of i'm
pending death mas been played by the
bad man on the good man, or girl
with various crushing and cutting ma
chimes: every audience knows, OF
course that the fellow worth saving
VIII be saved: and people at last took
such scenes in fun, thus laughing them
off the stage. along with the cunning
and other fOOlishness. Thus Blaney
and Dawley would be unwise 10 throw
their hero under a descending ton 81
iron il they couldn't repeat the ole