The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-09-19


 rushes to the rescue. drags forth the offending guest, scolds him, KNOCKS him down throws him out; declares his own love of the woman and asks her to become his wife. It Is good
 match for her. have seen Ida Con
 quest wooed as dozens of heroines, Du. never by a more perfectly ioveiy gentleman.
 By the way. if you are an uncom-
 monly handsome man, and you write
 a play about hero who looks that
 him down. throws him out; declares
 way. as we'll as possesses
 heart; and suppose, furthermore. that
 you are an actor who casts himself | the best possible mind ana liness. would you have other charac-
 ters speak of your beauty? Charles Richman is such an author-actor. He doesn't shirk his professional duty.
 He makes aimiring women speak or him as that great. handsome fellow and directly to him as you big. hand some rascal" He doesn't deny 1t. How can he? But they mustn't kiss him. one tries to repeatedly, and he gently but firmly repulses her. May be | the grass widow might be indulged. | but she doesn't make the attempt. so | far as the audience sees, until several years after their marriage, when--wen why not clear up the story right here?
 Ida's first husband is alive. He cherishes an old hatred of Richman, and so, on returning to find him the second husband. insists on parting them. Then woe and anguish. In real life case like that. of course. number one having abused and de- | serted the woman, number two would simply put her aside long enough to obtain a divorce. and then re-marry | t-k Af Ia f decency. But this Is a play you see, and there needs to be q spell of misery
 will number one sell out his claim on | the wife? He will take nothing but revenge for the blows that the num- Der two once struck. He will change the pairs bliss to agony. Number
 on two picks up pistol with suici- dal intent. The wife snatches 1t away Number one sees an emblem Of Free masonry on its handle. An. is num- ber two a Mason? Yes. When num- Der one comes to think of 1t. so Is he. Can a Mason wreck vengeance on a fellow Mason? No-no-oo. Number one confesses that the rite that joined the woman to him was bogus, so she Is legally the wife of number two; and the play Is over It is the most amateurishlv ineffectual composition that I have seen acted in long while.
 True to New York.
 However, the beefsteak supper has true characterization of fast life in New York. One of the guests Is the soubrette already mentioned. She is acted by Mae Mackenzie, the show girl who figured all through the two trials of Harry Thaw for killing Stanford | White as Evelyn Thaw's chum. Mae Is five feet of lively soubrette on the stage and off. Henry Irving compli-
 mented her for saucy vim when he saw her at Weber and Fields. Richman imparts to her in his play a habit ot kissing every man she knows on meet ing him. She comes to the revel right from a theatre In the costume of new | dance, so as to show both to the com pany. She immediately kisses every | fellow present. except the reformed host, who won't let her. and she gives | that rejected smack as an extra to Ferdinand Gottschalk. her preferred ad | mirer. Mae Mackenzie's is an engross ing Individuality, actual and assumed,
 to Broadway audiences.
 Evidently Bernard Shaw finds the role of alert, ever-ready wit little l too arduous. On the occasion, the oth- CT evening. of the first New York per-
 formance of "The Chocolate Soldier" comic opera made from his comedy of Arms and the Man." he cabled to the American adapter: If the first New | York audience appreciates this oper- | etta 1t should congratulate itself" That unconventionality is very funny
 except that 1t was so funny seventeen years ago that people are little weary l of 1t. When the first performance of l Lady Windermere's Fan" reached its l close there was a call for It's author. | The curtain parted and Oscar Wilde | was revealed, a gold-tipped cigarette l Tn his hand, a green carnation in his
 buttonhole. "If London possesses the
 intelligence to appreciate this play"
 he said. T congratulate London" l Epigrams to Music.
 | The opera a-ization of Shaw play IS l interesting. It Is difficult to fancy an 1 epigram set to music--it is harder to fancy dancing of a string of epigrams. | They do not do it.; that is the trouble. l The score is by Oscar Strauss. who, in "A Waltz Dream" supplied one of the most charmingly mel odious affairs ever
 brought over to our side. But before starting in ''The Chocolate Soldier" he
 obviously took a Wagner shower morn
 ing, twilight and night; ate Wagner: | slept Wagner. The music excites the l keenest admiration. but 1t Is not light
 opera. Gounod and Bizet might have
 learned a serious lesson from 1t.
 The first act follows the Shaw play
 
 Arms and the Man" a Bulgarian girl
 goes to bed warned by her mother to close the shutters tightly; and is brok- 1 sn in upon by Servian. an enemy of her people eluding capture It was, l as an actable act. one of the best | things Shaw ever wrote. The Austrian
 makers of the new libretto have adher- | ed to the original, introducing, howev- 1 CT, a cousin of the girl. and making
 this sprightly miss and the heroine's | mother infatuated by the intruder
 Except for a few minutes. when a l troupe of Bulgarians appear to search
 for the enemy. the act is a long trio of
 the three women, or quartet with
 the man added. The music Is not a 1 trombone lighter than Nicolai's setting
 of ''The Merry Wives of Windsor" in
 which we are accustomed to hear Sem-
 brich and Schumann- -Heink at our
 grand opera house The second act | iivens up.
 One is reminded of Mark Twain's
 difficulty in translating his story of
 The Jumping Frog" back into Eng
 fish. We find stretches of Shaw, yet
 ignominiously reduced to the level or
 the music cue" And 1t reminds us
 that comedy and opera comique are 1 widely different things. In Arms and
 the Man" we found 1t very funny when
 the Bulgarian matron detailed her aiI-
 ments and her husband charged them
 tn washing her neck every other day
 and bathing more than once a week.
 Rut somehow in a comic opera we