Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-06-21
BY w. HERBERT BLAKE

Time-1SI2.
BY w. HERBERT BLAKE
",The Traitor" the Dixon-Pollock
hybrid which opened the Burbank week
yesterday afternoon, is officially Ia
beled "a melodrama." That is a mis-
nomer The striking thing about melo-
drama is that the motives of its char
acters are so clear as to be beyond
cavil, and the results of their actions So
immediate and retributive as to dis
pense with analysis 1t is the aptithe-
sis of the problem play at its best
1.-THE Traitor would be a problem
play at it's worst were it not for the
slyly burlesquing hand of Charming
Pollock, who, as collaboration, has
eliminated as much of the sectional
rancor as he could from the Dixon
lines. What is left quite loses its evan
escent charm, if we take it seriously.
Fortunately, except for two impas-
stoned moments in Acts II and III, we
were not compelled to essay that feat.
Personally, 1 am glad did not have toI
try to love the erratic Caucasians or
abhor those extraordinary Dixon ne
groes, the like of which were never
seen this side of Dahomey. 1 am
grateful for the unconscious, saving art
which made the Burbank company
travesty some of the most impossible
| moments, even as they tried ever so
desperately to impress us with the adj
mirable sermon of the Rev. Dixon
that the color of ones soul is quite de-
pendent on the shade of ones skin.
f'What solemn nonsense it is!"' ex-
claimed Blanche Hall, as though she
suddenly had dropped the character
veneer of Stella Butler and were say
ing what she really thought of the
play. And it was-just that. A young
girl, seriously supposed to be in love,
without hesitation believes the lies of
rival sutton and credits her favored
admirer with the stabbing of her ia
Their Credits is not misused-if you have
seen the fatherD. Then she leads her
lover into a trap laid by his rival, whom
she detests, causes the formers arrest,
tries in a weak sort of way to justify
her suspicion to him, and In the last
act supinely begs him to forgive her.
By a chain of extraordinary circum-
stances-chief of which are "Sure-as-
He'll Beasley, with his handy gun and
pardon from PreSider+ Grant-the I'M
justly suspected former leader of the
Ku Klux Khan escapes The dramatic
blacksmithing which evolved the play
ignored the question of whether he
would marry the girl who faithlessly
tried to give him to his enemies and
then was sorry. She is really "the
traitor" and that is the problem, zone
imagines.
Maybe. but that isn't melodrama,
which always has an answer for every
question before you have time to frame
it. MelOdrama-good melodrama-I
doesn't drag over one whole act with
line of stodgy talk which old have
put even that negro jury to sleep, as
Act 1 of 1.-THE Traitor" does. Melo-
drama doesn't plaster on a harmless
old nanny a crazy negro argot such
as was never heard off the vaudeville
stage, as our joint collaborators have
done on the voice of that capable ac-
tress, Miss Royce. Melodrama never
dreamed of such a compound of inane
minstrel and cunning devil as "Sancti-
fed Isaac Postle. Both are specimens
of the Dixon darkey, a type which ex-
lists only to the perfervid eye of racial
hate.
The play unrols this chaotic piano.
rama of brutes and weaklings and
liberated blacks. In the BACKGROUND
hovers the grim menace of the Ku Klux
Klan-until we see them. On their first
entrance the specter vanishes, for a
more fantastic and unterrifying band
never trod the ballroom or barroom
The tin soldiers of "a Milk White
Flag" were not half so farcical.
Despite her impossible role, Miss Hall
put momentary CLEANS of flesh and
blood about the skeleton of her part, af-
lOIulIlS us a. HASH VI real le6lllR Ill II9
scene in which she hesitates before be- |
traying John Graham. At the end the
characters rebuilding and entangling
inconsistencies overpower even her deli |
cate art and end in a snarl of posi- |
blities from which the Burbank man |
agement ought to open a guessing con-
test to extricate her. When she COM |
mits unblushing perjury for Graham
(after taking an oath which sounded
much too like the solemn reality for |
reverent ears) the character rings false
ly true for a moment, for such
woman, if conceivable, could serve ulti- |
mate truth only by lie.
1t was in this trial scene that thet
burlesque note, following the discordant |
melody of the plot from the first, rose |
into a blare of rollicking Joy which
almost drowned the bitter invective of
the parties to the action. Henry Stock
bridge is much too funny to let any
theoretical notions of negro inferiority |
prevent him from opening the door to
the spirit of comedy. He was no more
a negro than he was dinosaur, but | |
believe he might play either if a dis
corning dramatist gave him the chance.
1t would be a diverting dinosaur
Mr.. Burton gave pictorially and
nhoneticaly correct representation of
the lawyer of the '70s and toiled hero
ically to make one phase of the Dixon
action real. To be just, l must own,
rNan