The San Francisco call., 1909-09-07
STARS WORK IS LIFE
OF FIGHTING HOPE
Original Girl of the Golden
West" Given Ovation After
Five Years Absence
By WALTER ANTHONY

Above the play and above the author
The Fighting Hope" which was the
Van Ness offering last night. The
California star-for she is a California
star-was given such a greeting as
drew real and not stage tears from
her eyes when she tried to tell us how
still the girl of the golden west"
though in another play.
The play might have been written
for her. Any play, indeed, is written
expressly for Belasco star, if David
accepts the script. His intuitive know
ing fits roles to players unerringly.
The play is second consideration;
and when the task of production is
accomplished there is created another
stage character by an actor or an
actress capable to the last infection of
playing the part.
In The Fighting Hope" David
Belasco has imposed a heavy task
upon his heroine. 1t is doubtful if
there are handful of women in the
land who could get away with the i'm
personation, and when l say "a hand
fur l mean FIVE
GIVEN TRYING TASK
Blanche Bates is called upon to do
as much in as little time IS Ibsen him.
self could conceive as reasonable days
work for leading woman. But she
completes her task wonderfully and we
know now why we have not seen her
for more than five years. The east
wouldn't let her go.
The play is artificially made. situ-
alton of extreme interest is evolved
and then the story is woven as skillfully
y ha frr@ .s@
plan will permit.
In the first act ii is learned that
Robert Granger is in Sing Sing, accused
OF a crime involving the embezzlement
of 100000. His wife believes him in
nocent and proposes to fasten the
crime in the pen hand of Burton Tenn
pie, who she believes was the real
criminal Temple is the president of
the company of which her husband, the
convicted man. was treasurer Mrs.
Granger believes that Temple has made
a scapegoat of her husband and she
comes into his office to learn the Sc
crets OF that place and to wrest from
Tempie some evidence WI fch will free
her husband and convict the corpora
tons president. Then she falls in love
with him. He falls in love with her.
AT first she will not admit it, but the
audience is made aware of the fact
In the second act--a splendid one
her husband was. after all, the guilty
person is established. In the third act
1t is also disclosed that her husband
committed the crime for another
woman's luxury and that it was for her
that the proceeds of his embezzlement
were destined. The third act also
brings forth most of the examples of
Hurlbut's weaknesses as playwright.
He is fortuitous. To give the wife
fn Tor
body wants to see her marry, he has
the husband shot. Granger escapes
from the penitentiary, comes to Tenn
pies home near by, where his wife is
engaged as stenographer. and an
nounces the fact that he had been par
doned. He hasn't been, but the state
ment seems reasonable in view of dis
coursive testimony previously given by
the players. His wife, meantime, has
destroyed the only evidence that he
(the f7dsband) is guilty. The destruction
of the letter carries with it the impli-
cation that Temple will surely go to
prison in place of the already con-
victed but now apparently pardoned
husband.
In tremendous scene following Mrs.
Granger fights with her conscience the
triple enemy composed of her love for
Temple, her reasonable horror of her
husband and her innate sense of hon
esty has to choose between sending
her husband back to prison or freeing
him and sending Temple in his place
In other words, she must go before the
court and testify to the contents of
the letter which, penned by Granger.
proved his guilt and Temples .inno-
cence. whistle blows outside
Granger admits that after all he Is not
pardoned. His wife shows him through
a door to a way to escape. A pistol
shot is heard. and word is brought that
Granger is killed.
MAKES REGAL STRUGGLE
Blanche Bates brings this story to