Los Angeles herald., 1909-11-29
BY W. HERBERT RLAKE

Dr. Whipple, a physician ......Leo Pierson
johnson, a trained nurse. Fannie Wolf
BY w. HERBERT BLAKE
They say Paul Armstrong is a grim
and sarcastic cynic, but his plays show
there is one thing which he admires
with the simplicity of Child-the
American of the great west. What he
admires he eXaggerates, which is in
one way a fortunate thing for him.
The modern playwright, in the din of
rival barkers, must shout for US TO
catch his message. Paul Armstrong
as playwright, has a lusty a voice as
the baby boy who is the hero of the
play the Burbankers gave us yes
terday.
The American plainsman is the hero
of Paul Armstrong; secret adulation.
Dress-suited New Workers he despises
with a calm liberation. There is only
one devotee of social convention in
THE Heir to the Hoorah" who is at all
a decent fellow, and he had the for
tuitous good luck to work in a mine for
a few years. The rest do the best they
can, including the villain, but the dress
suits eventually drag them down.
Similarly savage is Mr.. Armstrong;
treatment of his women characters. In
Going Some he mildly petted them.
They were convenient toys, to add TO
the colorful effect of his picture and TO
serve as prizes for the masterful males.
in THE Heir to the Hoorah' he pur-
sues them with a singular and sus-
tanned VindictiVeness. The mother-in-
law who made a slave of the husband
is humbled by a series of healthful
bumps in the direction of sanity. Well
and good, perhaps. But the same
strenuous portion is meted out to each
of the other women in the play.
Rugged westerners insult them quite
without reason, when everyone who
knows the west knows that the real
cowboy is at heart as simply chivalrous
as King Arthur.
The climax is reached when one of
the women without adequate reason de
liberately leads her admrer up to the
point of proposing, and In a very OH
Vious and clumsy way. Indeed, all the
love scenes apparently are written as
a sort Of necessary evil Naturally
they are difficult to play convincingly
But if Paul Armstrong; women are
merely mouthpieCeS for his occasional
scorn of their sex, his men, at least his
western men, are things of flesh and
will and soul. They come on the scene
just as the matrimonial fortunes of an
old comrade are on the decline. The
mother-in-law has majestically de-
creed a separation. The wife has dis
covered the husband is lacking in eti-
2
of discovering the wife is lacking in
common sense. Like a conquerine
band of Goth entering the imperial
city, these bronzed miners enter the
distracted household. They take its
conventions far more seriously than do
the New Workers. What is more, they
master them instead of being mastered
by them. They vanquish the dress suit
They rout the air Of apathy which in
tests the home, from husband to Jap
servant. They teach the head of the
household that he must rule it. while
his own instinct reminds him that his
dollars cannot buy the love of his Wife,
and that affection, far from being pur-
chasable, must be earned. Then comes
the heir to the HOOrah. The heir is a
baby boy and the Hoorah is a baby
mine. Both begin 10 realize eXpecta-
tions Immediately, and the last act
merely trifes with our attention to the
extent of a few Courtships which need
perfecting.
The play is well acted. Almost
everybody seems 10 like his role. Mr..
Be9sley showed a renaissance of his
old zeal and zest in a part of the heavy.
vital sort which he fills so ably. He
made the husbands achievement of
polish rather too sudden a thing in the
second act. A few surviving hints Of
awkWardness are requisite. David
Landau, the most recent acquisition to
the stock company, received a hatter-
ing reception, which he took admir-
ably, not once departing from character
in acknowledging it, His impersona-
ton was vigorous and human
thing, which arouses agreeable hopes
as to his future work here. Mr.
Mestayer made an attractive fellow out
Of the eastern mine foreman and