The sun., 1909-01-19
new NOTE IN "THE VAMPIRE
TELEP4THY USED TO STEAL
THE IDEAS OF OTHERS.
Problems In woolf and yiereck's Play
which VIII Likely Interest Many
Peopie-John T.. kellerd and Other
Capable Players Have Difficult Tasks.

As was 80 truly remarked by Nrs.
x duser in the first act Of "The Vampire"
at the Hackett Theatre yesterday after
noon. geniuses is something offle. That's
why John L. Kellerd had such difficult
task when he undertook to make the
character Of Paul Hdriieigh. who early
in the play is proclaimed to be a genius.
a thing of life and reality. while the young
man who had to appear as a budding
novelist of whom great things were ex-
pected and the actress who had to- inn
personate a landscape painter touched
with the divine fire. had tasks only less
difficult than Mr.. Kellerd's. The player
who represented a sculptor on the point
Of physical collapse, however, had an
easier burden TO carry because nervous
prostration ia an affliction not confined to
geniuses.
Take him by and large. the average
genius is a creature to be approached with
caution, for though his professional pro-
duct be sublime. he may grease his hair. or
there may be fringe on his cuffs or he may
prefer cocaine to beefsteak or his favorite
avocation may be beating his mother.
And IL takes an uncommon amount OF
tiles and remember only the sublimity
Of the professional product.
Paul Hdrtleieh was the principal genius
OF "The Vampire He was thief OF
thoughts. That is to say. he assembled
about himself a group Of young artists,
soulptors. painters and writer's. and
partly by telepathy. partly by hypnotism,
absorbed from them their ideas and their
inspiration and turned them TO his own
uses.
Take the case Of CdrW Fielding. Fielding
was a young man who had written some
poetry that had attracted attention and
some prose that made publishers think
him coming novelist. Hortleigh induces
the young man to come and live in his
house in order that he may burglarize
Fieidins's brain the easier. In one scene
we sse Fielding in the throes OF poetical
composition. He speaks line Of verse,
gets half way through the next line and
pauses, only to hear the conclusion OF
the line spoken by Hortieioh. He thinks
he must have spoken IL himself. else
how could Hortleioh have repeated itP
But he had not spoken it at all. BY his
telepathic power Hdrtleioh had read the
conclusion Of the line before the young
poet g tongue could utter It.
In sculpture and in painting the vam-
pire's method was quite other, for he was
neither sculptor nor painter. he was a
poet. But from the painter and the
sculptor by this same teepathic process
he sucked the ins piration that had fired
their ina ginations which
he subsequently, expressed through the
medium Of poetry.
Now il would appear to the casual
observer that ideas differ from money
in that when thief steals a purse its
owner has il no longer, while thief may
stea an idea and still leave IL in the pos
session Of it's owner. But this was not
the theory upon which Edgar Allan Woolf
and George Sylvester Viereck. authors
of The Vampire" did their work. heir
proposition resolved hseli INTO TINS
got it any more" And not only that,
but the victim Of this burglary Of the
Drain begins to suffer from ana'mic
ina gination lis creative powers de-
cine, little by little. until he finds him
self wholly impotent for further work;
i:is powers in short. fail like thoss Of
the victims Of the orrithological vampire,
That ia he way IL worked out In the
play IN the cas- of Fielding. the writer:
luene Arden. the painter. AMI Touhsenf.
the sculptor. Once an artist escaped
from tho proximity OF Hdriei9h, the vam-
pire. his creative powers came back to
MIN and he stood again upon his feet, but
personal association with the great
artIstic sponge meant only one thing
altlS, iC anninilatlOn. Now, true or falls =.
and there is no known evidence OF cons
luenCe thai indicates its truth-thIs Is
an interesting theory, and there IL no
doubt that Yesterdays audience was
l,l la into "A in Z q n All
1elepathy is not new thing on our
homng TnpUla smpIoyS2 d'i; !, in % %he s Witchins
.!our" in combination with hypnotism.
cut the authors OF The Vampire" have
carried it scveral steps further and APP
preached the subject from a new angle.
Their teiepathist cannot only tell what
man Is thinking about but can even
tell the exact words he is about to speak.
And he Is not, like Mr.. Thomass telcpa-
thist, a benevolent operator. On the
contrary, his influence is sinister for all
he touches, though he justifies himself
on the ground that he. like Shakespeare,
only uses the ideas OF other men in order
with them to touch the great heart of
humanity.
An original theme, on the whole. and
one which is likely 10 interest a good many
people-a thenN which is likely to meet
much more respectful consideration than
u IL Dtth uri gtdlS
ago--a theme most difficult to make
dramatic There are dramatic
moments In The Vampire" One of
them came in the second act when there
bursts upon the embryonic novelist the
realization Of why it is that his powers
are failing, why IL is that he can no longer
create. This scene was splendidly played
bv John Westley with every denotement
of pathos and OF horror that the some
what clumsy lines permitted. 1t was
easily the best moment in the play, The
histrionic honors Of the afternoon, in
fact, went easily to Mr. Westley
The tangles Of the play are not wholly
resolved. We would like to know, for
example, what becomes Of the vampire
when, discovered 20 his victims. he IL left
TO his own devices. And there are times
when the stage becomes a lecture plat
form. while the dialogue Ia frequently
stilted and wooden-all Of them faults
to be expected Of inexperence. But un-
common the play certainly is, and there
is no doubt that II interested the audience
that saw it yesterday However, one
could easily do without that feeble parody
Of Whistler.
Mr. Kellerd discharged the difficult
task of putting genius under the micro
Miss Katherine Florence exhibited her
familiar grace and personal charm in the
part Of the painter who loved the young
novelist Mark Smith engagingy imper- !
sonated a slangy and amiable patron of
the arts who vanished away all too soon, !
and Warner GLAND gave a realistic view
Of the sculptor who suffers from nerves,
The one scene of the play was attract |
iyelv furpished forth and the play moyed |