The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-03-28

of the mere waltz that the music be-
longs to.
Bertha Galland came into theatrical
View some years ago with the bound of
an elastic young woman. with much
beauty and some ability, and soon
bounced back into private life. Last
year she fell out with David Belasco
over her agreement to become the hero
Inc I'm The Rose OF the Rancho" and
now she has shifted herself to a more
SIN gular drama. odd. indeed, is THE
Return OF Eve" Audacious, too, and
tUfeIktve TO some. though absorbing to
egtheTse 1t sets forth a problem. Can
boy and girl. really of no kin at all,
but brought up TO believe they are
brother and sister, become sweethearts
with love that yesrns for wedlOck?
Gabriel d'AnnunZio, the Ubiquitous
Italian writer accredited as the affini-
tive comrade I'm art of Eleanora Duse,
made her as the blind girl In THE
Dead city" amoruusly desired by her
own brother, who knows she is his sis
ter The small portion of New York
that went to see that performed in a
foreign language was shocked by the
dreadful exposition of carnal passion.
The tragedy was rated as a deplorable
compliance by Duse with d'AnnunZio's
degenerate stroke for notoriety. celebri-
ty and possibly fame-or infamy.
=
Lee Wilson Dodd, scion of Standard
on millionairism and recent graduate
Of Yale, does not present exactly that
problem. Instead, he creates an Adam
anu an Eve, taken in infancy from a
founding asylum by an experimental
ethnologist, and reared in a primitive
paradise somewhere in the mountains
in West Virginia. He let's them believe
they are. the progeny of the same father
and mother. The outcome is not shown
In the mock Eden, but in the very real
New York, where Eve is introduced.
Eve is al heiress to half the wealth of
the dead scientist. As embodied by
Miss Galland she is a creature vital
with impulsive desire for earthly pleas
uTes, especially to love and to be loved.
She squanders her money in lavishly
entertaining her new acquaintance,
and permits a good-enough young fell
low to WOO her with a prospect of win
ming her: Vet all the while her love has
been left behind her with Adam in
Eden; and when he comes to New York,
with his heart aching for her, there is
an abundance of emotion. for neither
has any inkling that they are not close
~ related by birth, and they are acute
feel but don't comprehend.
Eve returns from her New York So
cial gaiety-where her gaucheTies
amuse the audieuce-to the calm of the
Virginia Eden. There the secret that
the lovers are Of unrelated paTentage is
revealed to them, and the story ends
with a betrothal. Miss Galland's acting
is charmingly admirable in both the
fooiery and the pathos of her role
Broadway gets in the cast two Of the
satisfactory actors Of heroes who
abound throughout the country in To-
Gated stock companies and touring
plays, but infrequently get into Broad
way. The names of Lester Lonergan
and Richard BUTLER mean nothing when
read in the program; but when Loner-
gan and BUTLER get along proficiently
Is the Eden and the Gotham rival low
ers Of the modern Eve. our FOUNDERS
elate themselves on the discovery of
talent which the rest of the country
knows well. Young Dodd's play de-
serves l think, a higher estimate than
it gets; for it is original. singular and
facile; and genius alone could have
made it a masterpiece.
X x X
Is the NewlyWeds' baby among your
acquaintance? II he is, you are quail
flied to wonder what sort Of a hero q
play can hope to get out of an infantile
toddler whose only words are ''Da-da,
dada" Considering that 1t has taken
five craftsmen to make the farce of
THE Newlyweds and Their Baby" and
two composers to set it to music, your
wonder may rather grow than dimin-
ish. The show starts off with a rat
Ting dash-bang party given by the
Newlyweds i'm honor Of bestowing the
F1n of Nann1nora fafr
baby. For a time the cooling couple
and their baby are true in look and
spirit to George McManus' funny pic
lures Mrs. Newlywed, pretty beneath
a prepoSterous mass OF red curls and
puffs and pompadours. is the sweet,
Cherry-lipped, sOlicitous, loving moth
er, beaming with trusting admiration
in Mr.. Newlywed, the proud, imbecile.
young father and If Napoleon is too
big for his age, he looks and acts as he
ought TO. But after ten or fifteen min
utes of that-what?
In the former days when every novel
that bOrdered on the six best sellers
class was hurried on the stage, whether
it had any qualifications for drama or
not, il became a jest to predict that the
telephone book would be dramatized
next. That is now little less than a
reality. Fluffy RufTIes is hardly more
of a basis for a play than the name
and number of a pretty girl culled from
the telephone list, and where are the
teeming suggestions i'm Buster Brown,
Panhandle Pete and the rest of the Jolly
set? So the sextette OF authors of ''The
Newlyweds and Their Baby had to
invent a plot. And an unpleasant one
it would be if one paid any attention 10
1t in the scenes of crude but Iaughable
farce, the almost continual dancing of /
sprightly girls and the rattle of tunefuI |
songs. There is a thleving dwarf who |
pours out passionate pleas Of love to |
the baby's nurse, a particularly buxom |
young woman who will have none Of /
him. So when villainous German has |
stolen the baby to exhibit In an incu-
bator show, the dwarf takes Napoleon's |
place. Thus he is kissed and fondled |
by the woman who disdains him. It is |
Not a nice idea. and some of the de- |
tails can hardly be taken as models of !
good taste. After all. though. why |
lombard with serious objections a show |
so frothy and trivial which simp sue /
ceeds in amusing people who go pre- |
pared to be amused?
Do or don't Americans regard a 1
players foreign accent as an artistic /
distinction? Our admirable Mary An
derson and Julia Marlowe, making /
their New York debuts as Parthenia /
he ~