Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-06-16

of her soul. She is never so sincere as
when she plots most archly. Who
paused TO ponder the ethical question
of her theft of the letters by making
son his fathers betrayer? Her mute
distress at the petty surprises OF the
family ruin was as real as her veiled
scorn in that scene in which Literature
successfully bats Business. No one
could miss the keen impression of her
stified terror when she first entered the
lions den, yet no one can quite say
just when that fright gave way to con-
fident mastery as she piled the smile
that cut and the wit that burnt per-
adroit transition Is the most incisive
art Miss Reed has shown us thus far
in her work here.
There was a harder, bitterer note
in her voice in the tense climax of that
great third act which told better than
words how much Shirley's ordeal had
cost her. and right here the play Is
truest to actually. Her laugh, half
exultant, half contemptuous as she
played upon the elder Ryder's vanity,
showed how real and final was the
sacrifice which mans pride exacted of
woman's love. The mouse had grown a
tigress.
A moment later, how superbly she
played the double role of ironical In
depreciation of Ryders character and
ruthless denunciation, as moral passion
for a moment overbore her carefully
conceived plot and babe her proudly
bare her duplicity to her victim. A
yery minor note she struck in that
moment of kneeling entreaty for her
father, as though she knew the futil1ty
of prayer to such as John Ryder. Her
scathing farewell. Marry your son?
No, thank you, Mr.. Ryder" literally
bore one to ones feet in involuntary
tribute.
There was fine idealism In her re-
fusal to let the son aid her-and that
at his moment of real masculine DOM
nance, long deferred. Even when she
yielded-and l think Mr.. Klein has
made that surrender rather too sum-
mary-she bent the wills of two thor
oughly plastic men.
1t was Miss Reeds opportunity ana
Richard Bennett was never truer TO
his artistic creed than when ne let
her have it unchallenged. II 1t were
not ungenerous to his talents, l would
say that the action forced tnat pru-
dence, His task in the play is less
obvious but very delicate one. Tritely
speaking, he put his personality into
a role which is it's exact antlthesls.
He made the weaknesses OF JEFFERSON
RYDER sources of his own strength as
an actor. And at the last he taught
US that pluck is not a matter OF front,
or a bass voice, or aVoirdupols, put u
thing of the spirit. A significant de-
fail was Jefferson's boyish breathless-
ness. in the scene where he stammered
through that choke in the throat into
a crescendo Of logged defiance OF his
father. An observant audience was
quick to appraise Mr.. Benefits uner-
ring grip on each successive situation.
We watched the boy grow, we sympa-
thized with his callow caddishness and
weakness. We even wished that fate
had given him larger share in that
triangular struggle.
Mr., Hartford's John Ryder was a
restrained picture of the American
millionaire, consistent and stubborn
even in his defeat. Human vanity we
saw ever as his spiritual handspring.
He was the lion, bound cruelty by
network of cobwebbed steel--the
shackles of his own ruthless SELFISH
ness. He was inflexible-as a slave
is inflexible. At the last he is unre-
generate-"It's not for the man Cor
truth and justice); it's for the woman"
that he spares Judge Rossmore. Yet
the emotion he displayed in the last
act was genuinely selfish,
too honest to cringe TO Ideals IL recog-
nized but too dimly.
1 hope a dramatist of the younger
American school some day will write a
play which does not drag through the
first three-quarters of the initial act.
Both Mr.. Applebee and Mr.. Hartford
mumbled and murmured their earlier
dialogue till it was all but inaudible to
anybody back of the first ten orchestra
rows. Their inarticulateness was un-
pardonable, of course, but the sodden
chat of that first act frankly invited 1t.
Mr.. Vivian made quiet comedy out of
the elopement incident. Mr.. Morrison
was a veritable facial Foraker. Lean
and sepulchral. Mr., Scott's clergyman
was true to that banal type one sees
only as theatrical "tiller." Miss Nor
mans querulous servant deserves ac--
acknowledgement, as does Miss Lewis
spineless Mrs. Ryder. Perhaps the lat-l