Los Angeles herald., 1909-12-28

UUTa5 w
at the Mason opera house Monday evening,
December %. 1909
THE CAST
Irving Lawrence. ........ Harrison Hunter
Barbara Lawrence. -. Miss Olga NethersOle
Harry, their. child $3.50. Miss joe Wallace
Muriel Lawrence, iTVing's sister ........
................ Miss EIorence Huntington
John prainor, ITving's secretary ........
stella Trainor. Harry's govcrness. .......
.................... Miss Charlotte Tittel
Gordon Payne engaged to Muriel
.............. ...,........., ,James ID. Rosa
Lincoln Schuyler. er...............A Albert Perry
Peters, man servant Frederick Brown
Christine, maid. Miss Lillian stafford
BY W. HERBERT BLAKE.
A powerful, just and tragic drama
OF retribution, THE Writing on the
Wall" began Miss Olga Nethersoles
week at the Mason last night. 1t is a
play which hits hard and straight at
abuses which too long have been COW
cred by the mantle of a false charity
or pooh-poohed as the alarmist agi-
tation of dreamers. 1t Is Il practical
play, and to verify its charges against
| Trinity church corporation with
others in New York city. Miss Meth
ersole herself is said to have PERSONAL
ly investigated the slums of the metro
polls. 1t is fair play, for it states
the views of the men and the inter-
ests which it assails, while exposing
their fallacies. 1t is an eloquent and
a hopeful drama. for it points the way
to radical reform, and even courage
ously makes over its principal Of
fender
Irving Lawrence, a rich holder of
slum properties. is seen in his palatial
mansion. living amicably, If hardly on
terms Of affection, with the wife who
has discovered him to be untrue and
has forgiven him for the sake of their
child. A young reformer, Lincoln
Schuyler. bent on forcing the owners
of the tenements to rebuild their rick
ETY. and rotten structures, is the friend
of the wife, who aids him in his cru
| sade. Lawrence is induced, with some
difficulty, to attempt a reform. He
straightway pretends to put up new
fire escapes on his buildings, but really
simply paints over the old ones. In
the meantime his wife has discovered
that his love affair with another
woman, once condoned and supposedly
abandoned. has been clandestinely re-
newed. In a scene of sustained pas
sion and accusation. she confronts him
with the proof Of his guilt. and scorn-
fully confesses her own love for Lin
coin Schuyler. which she has stihed
and will not crafty by the easy meth
cd of the divorce court-again solely
for the love and future of her boy.
In the midst of this scene the voice
of the extras" from the street, an
nouneing a terrible fire in the tenement
properties owned by Lawrence with
cruel and enormous loss of life among
the miserable women and children
forced TO dwell in them. Husband and
wife forget their own tragedy in the
horror of this catastrophe. The wife
accuses the husband of the murder of
these innocents, and his feeble protes-
tations falter and fail in reply. Then,
in a moment, they learn that their own
child, who has been taken to a Christ
mas party on the top floor of one of
the buildings destroyed, has not re
turned. The stroke of fate has come
home to the man who sneered at re-
form and derided the efforts Of the re-
formers. Lincoln Schuyler also has
perlshed in the flames in a futile effort
to save a few lives from the holocaust
| The domestic problem is opened to
several possible solutions, but the be-
reaved mother has thought only for
her little child, dead with hundreds Of
others less fortunate in life, equally
the prey with them of his fathers OBJ
tuse and ruthless brutality.
In the last act the wife, broken in
spirit and weary of battling, consents
to live still with the man upon whose
shoulders falls justly no small share of
the blame for this truly social ca
tastrophe. He agrees to strive, as best
he may, to amend the broken threads
of life still left to him. A final effort
to stifie the truth and blind the
press to his duplicity is baked by the
wife. Cornered and forced to yield,
the man Lgrees to face the evils he
has but recently ignored, and strive to
right them. One can only hope the re-
pentance is sincere as the curtain falls.
1t is a gleam of hope on a terrible and
bleak background of misery. The heart
is grateful for it, even as the mind re-
fuses quite to believe it real.
This is "The Writing on the Wall"
true and a heart searching drama of
the horrors that lurk just beneath the
surface in our social and industrial
system. 1t pillories the temporal heads
of Trinity parish as conspicuous often
ders against the Justice and the mercy
they hear proclaimed from their pull
pit. 1t denounces in outspoken and re-
lentless terms all who sell themselves
and their wecker brothers for gold
and splendor and the tinseled hippan-
cies of a hideous and hollow pros
perity 1t is a voice crying in the
wilderness of modern Indifference and
sloth-a cry that has echoed through
out America, and forced a belated and
partial defense from tie vestrymen of
Trinity. 1t is a voice that must be
heard and needed, if modern civiliza-
ton is not to go the way of the tyran-
nies and despotisms of the past.
Miss Nethersole has done well to en-
ploy her delicate and impressive art
in enforcing this moral lesson. She
has gained in the power of restraint
and in the finer shadings of emotional
portrayal since 1 last saw her, in
"Sapho." In the more vivid moments
of the drama she was very far from
the rant and mere crash and tear of
passion which is the sole stock in trade
of so many emotional actresses. The
pathos of her wan and fearful face
at the close of the last act was very
real, and all the more appealing for
our sense of much withheld tlat less
discerning player would have poured
forth in the unchecked volubility of
grief. The charms of her voice was
felt in the earlier scenes and the
power of her personality throughout.
There were moments in which a dis
tressing blurring and slurring of her
syllables marred our appreciation, a
fault which was shared by Mr.. Hunter
in his portrayal of the husband. In a
play in which much Of the action is
imagined, from hearing the dialogue,
this was the more noticeable, palliated
though it was sometimes, by the stress
of feeling under which the character
suffers and speaks.
The support was adequate, Mr.. Perry,
as the young reformer, giving dig
nified and finely modulated imperson-
alton.
AS a propaganda play. "The Writ