The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-03-21
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

New York, March 19.-The spirit of
sinister commercialism does not cast
any darksome shadow over Votes for
Women" The black hand of no sordid
assassin of dramatic art has aught to
90 with it. 1t is an ethic and aesthetic
factor in the uDlift of women: and in
some degree its boost of beauty was
anaesthetic to the masculine beast, to
Judge by those men who dozed while its
first performance kept thousand wo-
men engrossedly wideawake. If a stone
thrown at box had missed an Astor
# would have hit d Vanderbilt. The
women of wealth and fashion seem real
ly to wish to go to the polls.
< X
Elizabeth Robbyns, once an Ameri-
can actress, later an Ibsenian pioneer
in London, and recently a suffra gette
insurgent, wrote the drama to serve as
an exposition of the cause of ballots for
women. She Submitted it to Charles
Frohman. who offered 10 buy one act
of it to put into a play two-thirds by
another authOr-and a man at that.
Elizabeth had not put her pleas for
women into actabie form to have them
handled by a possibly unsympathetic
person. The whole of it or none, she
!, vowed, should ever be presented in a
y tAeatre-
So New York has Votes for Wo-
men" delivered by the Actors Society
of America, an organization primarily
devoted to the temporal affairs of stage
folk. with the elevation of the drama as
a side issue. Actresses dominate ac-
tors in its control, ! think and, any
way, Mary Shaw is up toward the top
of IT,. Mary is one Of those actresses
whom experts dote on, but others don't
care for. because her merits are those
of an adept elOcutiOnist. Also, Mary is
strOngminded woman who wants to
vote The outcome is that the Actors
Society of America has hired A theatre
and brought out Elizabeth's play of
woman's rights, with Mary as its prin-
cipal spouter. 1t is not much of NOV
ing drama. Most of he time it is mo-
tionless While the suffrage cause is dis
cussed.
AS expected. the act that Frohman
would have bought-the middle one of
three-is Electrically the most effec-
tual 1t consists of a Sunday mass
meeting of sUffragettes in Trafalgar
Square, London. The base of the Mel
son column is in the view, and is util-
lied as a platform for oratOry, but the
figure Of the naval hero is I'D out of
sight in the flies. l don't recall any
Mare Antony in Julius Caesar who
faced a rabbie better characterized than
this one in Trafalgar Square. Various
types of Londons populace of today
are shown. I take il TO be a photo
photographic reproduction. The crowd
Is divided into three parts; those who
are with the speakers, those who are
against them. and those who don't care
cuss, but are out for fun only. 4
slouchy woman with an East End ac-
cent, and a smart woman with the
speech of the West End, address the
people in pleas for unrestricted suf
rage, and are supported by their ads
herents, against the interrupting ridi-
cule of real dissenters and reckless
guyers. A male orator talks back de-
family TO his badgerers and an incipient
riot is stopped by the police. This is
an informatory showing of a sort of
forum that we don't have in America
x K x
y fourth spellbinder Is Mary Shaw.
The initial audience is made upsof va
rious women's clubs and societies It is
? singular assembiaSe. The theatric
frst-nighters have gone to see CLYDE
Fitchs The Bachelor" Those here
look like sedate people at a lecture in
terSpersed by gay people from the
opera. Women are in a ratio of about
Z FIVE TO one man. Styles are mixed, if
MOT blended. Dozens Of millionaire ma
irons are in the boxes gorgeously ap-
parelTed. Hundreds of women in the
parquet look true to the spring fashion
plates. There are. also. defiants of the
modes ranging from tolerable girls with
charmingly boyish tendencies to women
ugly with their disregard of the charms
OF their sex. Such a houseful Of dis
tinctive people have not seen before.
Mary Shaw il a sincere suffragette
don't wish TO doubt; yet she garbs her
self modishly, and asserts star ac-
tress' right to the center of the stage. |
with all the rest of it subseTvient. while
she addresses the meeting. The rabbie. !
hitherto insultingly interruptive, be-
comes silently attentive. In the earlier |
portion of the play. it was limited vague !
y that Mary. when an unfriended
maiden, was the loser to an aristOcratic
winner of her heart. The fellow. n
member of parliament, RELOCATING her
to his past, is the present fiance of a |
nice young girl.
The old FOUNDERS new girl wants to |
go to the Trafalgar Square meeting. |
and the member of parliament takes !
Der. There she listens to Mary Shaw's |