The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-01-24

.----s.----.-- - genius beyond rivalry in the history of stage herofcs
 paid less attention to William Favershams instruction of Olive Oliver in. a bout with foils and of Julie Opp Faversham in a minuet, although the two women made the exercises grace fully slightly, because I was wondering if he would dare use brush and razor on the face of man customer. Of course, there's the latherer and shaver In the opera of "The Barber of Seville:" and you mayn't, but I do remember Davenport Mayo. Eddy and other old- timers In Jerry Clip the Barber" as an afterfarce to a tragedy of a Saturday night; but would Faversham put on and scrape off lather in his character of Q pictorially romantic hero? For half the evening I thought not: as a meniai assistant did all the barbering; but for a climax of the third act the star actor did his duty to the plays title by proving that he really was a barber of>New Orleans. A burIy bully had traduced%Faversham adored pu- pill. Miss Opp, and he laid himself back In a chair to be shaved. The towel was tucked under his chin. The father was rubbed over his face. The razor
 
 stroke across the throat.
 Did you lie when you said I boasted of the lady's favor?" asked the barber stopping the razor over the juguiar vein,
 T did" replied the helpless, scared man in the chair.
 Do you apologize humbiy to herr" "T do."
 As the lady was there behind a screen, the buncome of the incident triumphed over the travesty of herism; and Faversham let 1t down to farce for a minuet by choking his helpless enemy with hot towel and squirting alcohol into his eyes.
 A prize drama IS The Barber of New Orleans" It was adjusted the best in lot sent in to the New York Globe. The award may we'll have been judicious; for it Isn't supposable that any piayright of note was a competi- tor: and the winning play as written and constructed cleveriy. Illustrates an episode in American history and Is an engrossing to one sort of people as The Vampire is to another. It's plot turns on the sanie point that novel by Archibald Clavering Gunter did recently, and one by Captain Mayne Reid did Ions ago-+-the wrongful con- dts.p nation of an altogether white girl as a slave tainted with black blood No fctionist has yet ventured to create @ sure octoroon heroine. Dion Boucicault, In basing "The Octo- room" on Reid's story set for a bund- | red followers the example of a girls l purity of blood discovered before her marriage to white man. I wonder 1 what would happen to play in which supposed Caucasian bride was proved 8 fractional-part African? We take I 1t in gross form and d reversal of l sex from Shakespeare in "Othello," but well, I doubt if prize would have l been awarded to The Barber of New 1 Orleans" lf It's heroine were the octo- room she for awhile is thought to be, or If the hero were appropriately l tinctnred with negro blood, for his | trade but tiisquaiffyingly to woo a l white girl The authors get over or 1 around the difficulty by having the I man, although he impdlsively < vows 1 loyalty to the girl. immediately re- 1 lieved of the racial problem by a hope of proving her unblemished l whfteness.
 There Is a reminder of Uncle Toms Cabin as we'll as "The octoroom." not to mention "The Lady of Lyons" In 'The Barber of New Orleans" The lady of New Orleans distains her lover because he Is barber; and e telling scene is made of an auction sale In which he impoverishes himself to buy her at S10,000 by outbiddlng sensual rival. Then a "Claire and the Forge master" sort of spell ensues till she is convinced that he Is as good as she--or better No; it's the other way. There's a confusing quantity of plot in thls play. Let me see. Yes. The supposed octoroom turns out to be a French princess banished to New Or leans in childhood, while the barber Is a scion of an aristocratic but not royal family. At the tag, she evens him up to her social level by dubbing him a prince of love, or something like that; and the feminine portion of the audience. knowing that Julie Opp Is Mrs. Faversham anyway, approves tho denouement.
 Can you think of Augustus Thomas or William Gillette writing plays even short ones for the mere sat- isfaction of dramtizing an idea? We'll. you don't have to do that to account for their latest two pieces. but may attribute 2The Physician" and Nevada" to authors kindly desire to assist at a function so nearly private that -I felt like asking permission to write about to. "I don't see the slightest impropriety In your describing Gill; lette's playlet and mine if you think we need encouragement" said Thomas, who had just addressed the Actors Society on the desirability of fostering new dramatists. "and If you don't tell where they were performed" The fact was that he had disclosed him self to an assemblage of his suburban friends and neighbors in the title role of "The Physician" with Eugene Pres brey as his patient Very efficient actors were they, too. But the play was the peculiar thing and in 1t Thomas let loose some remnants of metaphysical theory left over from "The Witching Hour"
 The physician, being called ip to doctor a nervously prostrated patient, found out that the ailment was mental, and came of the disloyalty of the sick accordingly with advice instead of drugs; but he gave the doses of ad- vice in gobs of conversation to be swallowed unawares The patient was led to talk about the wife--to own up that his conduct had been faulty. too that the blame was at just about an even balance between them at the ends of a matrimonial seesaw. Next, he regorted to absent treatment. The wife was at home with her child on a Christmas eve He called her up on q phone and adroitly developed in her a holiday mood of tenderness lead ing to reconciliation. It was 6 drama let with only two men visible, but a woman as a third person very potently present. although literally absent.
 Giuettes little practice dash with Nevada" was at gun-pop meiodrama. He was as ingenious, as Thomas but atSenraut in making uge of A sick man.