The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-01-24
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

New York, Jan. 22.-Four plays note
worthy for American origination are
10 the theatrical output here. One Of
our few actors striving to be an Irv-
ing or a Mansfield in the productive
craft of the stage. William Faversham.
offers The Barber of New Orleans"
John r. Kollord enacts a psychic char
acter in THE Vampire" Two of our
famed playwrights, Augustus Thomas
and William Gillette, give examples
Of dramatic breyity in THE PbyS'-
clan" and Nevada" Aren't these
Things sufficient to make you follow an
account Of mem through two columns?
The genius of many greatly sue
ccssfUl man may not be originative; It
may be no more than an ability TO APP
propriate ideas from better minds
around him; and the authors of The
Vampire" assert, by the mouth of their
example character. that most of the
celebrities of history have been brainy
with other brains than their Own. The
writer's go surprisingly further by max
ing the man of their play a vampire;
not a creature who comes out of the
grave at night to suck blood from live
persons asleep; but a subtler, keener
and quite as appalling vampire has
gained fame as an author, and at for
ty-five is prosperous. He is noted for
seeming kindness to aspiring young
Iaen. The play starts in his studio
with a sculptor protege al work. This
fellow once seemed headed straight for
success, but since coming TO lodge and
labor on his patrons premises he has
done nothing worth while; no more can
he make his fancies shape his mould
ings; and in a frenzy of despair he
smashes his last futile endeavor IN
StatuaTy. The sculptor goes away and
young novelist takes his place. The
patron obtains from a publisher a cash
order for d book and the money will
save the hopeful chaps mother from
renuTy: but his hand loses its cum
ming, the imagery of his brain by night
fades by day, and the outcome Is
worthless. His mental decline seems
sure to send him TO a madhouse.
K X X
The title of The Vampire Is Of
course an explanation of the patrons
protegeS' Intellectual slumps; ne mas
sucked the vitality, the essence OF their
genius from their brains; and later IN
the play he tells that he found out his
abnormal gift of absorption at college,
where he drew the bTillianCe of room
mate into his dull self, thus getb
class honors while his robbed chum
Jailed of graduation Now, isn't that
q brsvely singular subject to put on
The stage in a play? And il isn't cruel
10 Edgar Allan Woolf, the joint author
With Sylvester Niereck, in view of the
praise he will share for this work, to
lsl YOU that he wrote the wretch0u
extravaganza. "Msmseile Champagne.
which was being performed in roof
garden when Thaw shot White. He
ooked amiable enough when he came
Vn the stage with Viereck; but it was
iereck who said thank you in broken
English; whereupon cynic at my side
called them plagiarists who had trans
4ated from some foreign source. Seri-
ously, I see no reason to pass along
Sscn an aspersion without comment.
tHe tendency OF American dramatists
Ass been metaphysical lately. and why
nay not Woolf and Niereck have
k.S1ged forward originally i'm that dN
tslaon Why charge that they, liks
'Aslr main character. are vampiristic:
X
however, the makers of this strange
lfana-so strange with its theme OF
mental telepathy as to be wide open
y ridicule-have not been so reckless
: 10 co without a love story They
US know that the victim of their
'@lhpire next after his college mate
-. rs sweetheart, a singer fit for
osssslonal honOrs, from whose voice
uIeW away the heart-notes and SOUL
s-Hes' aedvlng her to be killed by fail
"lthout them. By way of atone
s IS,t re has reared the dead woman's
a MS ward, and at the outset OF
- piay she is a promising artist A
esue y her took a prize when she
Ss studying in Paris, and she has