Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-06
CURRENT BILLS AT
LOCAL PLAYHOUSES
Moffett Studio, Chicago.

AUDITORIUM-Mrs Fiske, support
ed by her famous Manhattan company
will present Edward Sheldon's gigan-
tic play of slum life, Salvation Nell, ;"
beginning Monday evening This play
crowded the Hackett theater in New
York to the doors for more than half
the season. 1t is universal in its ap-
peal. Mrs. Fiske has one of the finest
acting parts which has ever fallen to
her lot; the enlarged Manhattan COM
pany supports her, the staging of the
piece has been magnificent and the
theme of the piece itself is gripping,
novel, absorbing. All these elements
have combined to make Salvation
Nell' one of the most tremendous sue
cesses Of Mrs Fiske's career.
Mr.. Sheldon has been content to
construct a superlatively interesting
drama and has omitted all sociological
discussions. Mrs. Fiske's part of a
scrub girl In a saloon, whose nature
becomes transformed through the in
fluence of a great love, is one of the
most appealing she has ever created.
Nell Saunders scrubs the floor of a
saloon in the Hells Kitchen district in
New York; Nell is the girl" of jim
Plat, a loafer given to drink and with
with a dogged, pathetic affection; he
is all that she holds sweet in life. 1t
is Christmas eve, and the flotSdm of
the underworld, the near criminals and
the denizens of low resorts gather to
pass the evening after their own brutal
fashion. Nearby a disorderly house is
raided and one of the inmates, Myrtle
Odell, escapes into the bar. Her Ian
guage is at once frank and extremely
a., ~
"Hallelujah Maggie" a worker of the
Salvation Army, who is royalty well
coined by the hangers on of the bar
room. In fight over Nell Jim knocks
out a man; the police arrive, take Jim
away and close things up and the in
furiated barkeeper orders Nell out into
the night. Nell cringes helpless, for no
door is open to her. Then Myrtle, in
a WelI-meaning way, offers to take Nell
with her back into her own life of
shame. Nell wavers hopelessly till
"Halleujah" Maggie offers her a bet
ter life Some dim better instinct
struggles up in Nell and she falls sob
bipg on Maggie's shoulder
Eight years later, in Nell's fiat, there
is a little boy Jim. Nell herself has be-
come a humble worker in the Saliva
tion Army. Her boys father comes
back after eight years spent in Sing
Sing, his nature, if anything, more
hardened. Yet the old love between
them still exists, although for Nell in
a nobler way. She tries to soften him
by leaving him alone with his son, but
the effect is only momentary. He
wants Nell only on the old terms. He
tells her of robbery he is planning for
that evening to obtain money to take
them all to Denver. In vain she tries
to dssuade him. At last, she consents
to yield herself to him; then, realizing
that she has made the promise more
out of passion for him than to save his
soul, she tears herself away. AS he
goes forth, apparently to the robbery,
Nell falls on her knees to pray for him.
One week later-the huddled tenement
houses rearing on all sides--children
frolicking in the cool of the evening,
women gossiping across areaways, and
from bedding-laden fire-escapes men
seeking the brightly lighted saloons.
There is movement, laughter, squalor,
chatter. Jim, who has been kept from
the robbery, seeks out Nell. They
have strange, fanciful love scene,
poetic in spite of the coarse vernacular
in which 1t is couched. In the Saliva
tion Army street meeting that follows,
Jim's brute nature yields to the elo-
quence of Nells inspired address. He
asks her to help him, and the curtain
descends to the blare of the Salvation
band playing a hymn.
For the present tour Harrison Grey
Fiske has enlarged the Manhattan
company to more than fifty members.
The part of Jim Platt is played by Hol
brook Blinn, and others in the long
cast are Mary Madison, Hope Latham,
Henry Wenman, w. T. Clarke, Eugene
Reed Merle Maddern, Mary Maddern,
Petra Folkman, John Dillon, Thomas
Carroll Grace Stanley, Antrim Short
and Corinne Ford.
MASON-One of the most interest
ing of the seasons attractions at the
Mason will be John Drew in Jack