The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-14
THEA TR[CAL LETTER
 OF FRANKLIN FYLES

ul
 Shakespeare tragedy in Broadway and
 a Sheridan comedy In the Bowery In
 both places the audiences unfamiliar ity with the matter presented is amus- ingly obvious. Who can expect other tn an persons with retentiye memories of early reading to know much more about King John" than that Shake speare wrote It? The great tragedians used 1t seldom, 1t has yielded nothing to the supply of familiar quotations | and up to last Monday 1t hadn't been | acted in this city since thirty five years 1 ago. .--.
 The New Amsterdam calls itself ''the | theatre beautiful" and 1t was occupied by modish people of 1 tolerable culture; yet the in- | tensely melodramatic incident of burn l ing a boys eyes out with redhot iron | --almost-hardly led most of them to show. by their absorbed behavior, that
 they had forgotten, if ever they had | known, that such a horror was In any Shak kespeare play. Many long passages are omitted to keep King John" down to long evenings limits. but this one
 is given completely and elaborately The historical story of the British | Kings political inter wedlocking with France and Austria, and the Pope's
 threats of pontifcal curses. bewilder | the women especially: but they have keen regard for the Kings little neph-
 CIV. Arthur, heir presumptive to the
 throne. and pitifully helpless pawn | In the royal chess game. There has l been a scene of anguish by the lads mother on his being taken away from
 her. and so the Shakespeare tragedy | has had tears wiped. off, 1t with many dainty handkerchiefs. Duke Arthur, as embodied by Leila
 Frost, child of sweet voice and grace
 full motion, Is another Little Lord
 Fauntleroy for curly hair and manly | spirit: and so when. in the seventh of | the plays ten scenes. he Is doomed | prisoner in gloomy castle, signs of sympathy murmur through the audi | torium. Doomed to what2 Why. to have his eyes burned out Shakespeare | was something of sensational melo- | dramatist his own self. The pretty | little fellow has been courageous. but | now terror overcomes him, and he
 pleads piteously to be spared the awful l torture. Hubert de Burgh, his custo- l dian, Is fond of him, but is sworn to 1 obedience, and he gruffiy commands si- lence. Thereupon, Arthur asks to have l his tongue cut out, which would keep
 him mum horribly, but he thinks that
 would be @ mercy in lieu of destroy
 ing his vision in agonies. Hubert Is l oath bound to do his dreadful duty. l He calls in two brawny executioners. 1 They bring kind of blacksmith's
 forge, thrust two iron rods ends into
 it's bed of live coals and work bel lows to intensity the fire.
 Arthur strives to be brave. but think 1 of having your eyes burned out? He | can't without cries for mercy, and the | women can't hear him without sohs of | pity. The two ruffians tie him in a chair and hold him fast with the ropes ends. Hubert takes the sputtering rods
 of iron from the fire, one in each hand, approaches the waiing boy and is about to thrust the superheated ends
 into his eyes. That in Shakespeare? Why. to be sure. Of course Huberts humanity prevails over his sense of duty, and he tries to let Arthur escape.
 The last previous presentation of King John" in New York was in
 1874 with J. B. Booth as the John. and his wife, Agnes Booth. as the Con- stance. Of all the professional critics at the present revival. only William Winter of The Tribune (who estimated Robert Mantelrs John as placing the | actor firmly among the great trage- dians) and J. Ranken Towse of The Post (who did not dissent much from that view) had ever seen the play act ed. The company is as capable as can be easily organized in these times of naturalistic acting as opposed to blank verse airinesS The mounting Is richly beautiful and correct in art. and a rare opportunity Is afforded to see an unfamiliar play of Shakespeare put on the stage resplendently
 The East Side has comedy new to most of the people who go to low-price theatres where gun-pop pieces used to be popular. It is an experiment with material to take the place of the crude melodramas once wanted but now fouted. The heroine was poor coun- try girl before marrying an old city bachelor. and her follies and foIbles ir- ritate him to testiness. She leases him | and he scolds her. until she goes from pad manners to worse conduct by pay Ing visit to a roue In his chambers. l You will perceive that this play tin kles the French triangle of wedlock in | the familiar way. How the husband surprises his wife with her tempter, and how she repents and reforms Is shown in action that makes the audi | ences whoop 1t to success.
 The author of this comedy Is Rich | ard Brinsley Sheridan and the 1.-the Is | "The School for Scandal" A close watch on a matinee audience convinced | me that only a minor portion of the
 assemblage knew they were seeing a | stage classic; or that 1t was not a new | composition. That they were unaware
 of its contents. anyway. was proved by | outbreaks of surprise in laughter or
 applause, when amusing things were | said or done. Lady TeaZle was jollied | along like any saucy soubrette wife In | a farce, and Sir Peter was taken all in | fun as an ordinary type of testy cuck-
 old. The brothers Charles and Joseph, | gnod-hearted prohigate and bad heart- | ed hypOcrite. were estimated altogeth- | CT merrtly; but the Inert Maria needed | a song and dance to save her from in-
 attention, and Moses would have made | no mark as Sheridan created him; but | he alone among the characters got per mission to break the old comedy's linn | its. He was made up for a Polish He- | brew pedlar from New York's ghetto | his speech was the vaudeville dialect | for Jewish caricature, and he got his | hands hit when the auctioneers ham
 mer knocked down the family DOT traits, which made him hop about and | cry "Oyyoy" as no Moses had ever | done before. I remember that when
 ever Augustln Daily revived The | School for Scandal" with Ada Rehan | as Lady Teazle, John Drew as Charles | and Mrs. Gilbert as Lady Candour. the | other member of the famous quartette. | James Lewis. was assigned to Moses, | although he was utterly incapable of | any other than a New England accent. | So bad was Lewtss Moses that the fla l vorite was always released after the | opening night and another actor. usu- ally Charles Leclercq. was substituted. |
 Nothing in present-day farce has
 n,ada raople 1aue~h harder far I