The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-04-25

stuff and colloquisi nonsense into a
play. The outcome is The Gay Life, -
which doesn't disclose a bad life that
is altogether a glad life, for it is con-
, siderably a sad life.
1t begins in a western Pennsylvania
towns cheap boarding house. from
which the keepers overworked and dis
cOntented but virtuous daughter runs
away to New York with a stranded the
atrical company. The rest of the play
gives her adventures I'm the Tenderloin,
and ends her unsullied stage career in
wedlOck wi n a milliOnaire's excellent
son.
The other stage girls are less partic-
uiar; not 10 mince words. they are wan
tons. They are shown to us first in a
fiat where their home fare in a hard
time consists of cheap viands washed
down with beer, and where a superan-
nuated soubrette helps her two daugh-
tiers to lure and literally rob the men
they bedevil. 1t is a ruthless exposition
of degradation in stageland However,
il. is. permeated with the wit an satu-
rated with the humor Of McCardelIs
studies in slang.
The concluding third of THE Gay
Lie" puts on view one of the many ia
ole d'hote restaurants where a dinner
with wine is served at 80 to 50 cents.
and the license of Bohemia compensates
for the lack of luxuries. McCardeII has
none Of the knack Of playwright. and
has not taken the help of a stage
craftsman; but he is a humorist, he
makes his characters chatter jokes suf-
fcient for twenty newspaper funny
columns; their vocabulary is brought
up to date with the new slang of the
Tenderloin; and the carousal of show
girls down on their luck with men
equally impecunious is true to life. The
cracking Of slang is like half an hour
of incessant firecrackers on the night
of a Fourth of July. OF anything Ike
dramatic arrangement or conclusion,
though, there is none.
The still good girl from western Penn
sylvania has gained a stage vogue, but
has lost her millionaire lover through a
misunderstanding. She dashes in and
filings Up her feet with her skirts in a
mad farewell kick at virtue: but at the
final pirouette of recklessness the arms
that she falls into are those of her stall
wart, steadfast lover, and he remarks
that she shall be his wife.
x
Managers have SHE'D at plays serious
ly illustrating racial prejudice between
Jews and GentileS. That Israelite with
an expert pen and an ethical purpose,
Israel Zangwill, cOutrived to get such
on the stage in 1.-The Ghet-
to-" and, strange to say, although the
author is devoted with seeming SINGER
ity to the good Of his people, those of
them who saw his piece disliked its ex-
position of their characteristics. while
Gentiles took no interest in it, and so
il went to pot. Within a month. an
Meyer & Son." and it was a fiasco.
Meanwhile, the Jew in caricature has
been numerous in comedies and farces
and his tricks of trade and traps of
thrift have been laughed at heartily
by Hebrews as by other folks. Irish So
cieties have lost their temper at actors
exaggerations of men from Erin and
rotten-egged them; but Jews have been
like Germans in taking spontaneously
the pOkes Of fun at their peculiarities.
= ;.
Now in The House Next Door We
have a drama of Jews versus Gentiles
that is liked by both. 1t is a make
over Of q German original now located
in London, where the Jews are in the
same ratio of population and CONNER
cial life that they are here. Have you
ever seen a play of our civil war that
hadn't a son Of the north and a daugh-
ter of the south bothered in their love
by. sectional antipathies? Similarly,
you probably will never see a Jew-Gen-
tile play without a pair of lovers held
apart by racial hatred. The unan-
nounced author of ''The House Next
Door not only repeats that postulate
Of courtship, but doubles il. Sir John
Cotswold, who believes that English
heritage of aristocracy amounts to
majesty Of BIRTH has a son and a
daughter; so has Sir Isaac Jacobson, q
recently knighted Jewish member of
parliament. The quartette resolves it
self into two pairs OF sweethearts, and
there you are.
Shrewdness is shown in the handling
of the ticklish subject Hob are a