The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-05-01
THINGS DOING in GOTHAM
BY FRANKLIN FYLES.

NEW YORK, April Soft you were
IN a writer OF plays for a living, and
the job of providing one for Mabel Ia
liaferro were offered to you at pay &c
pending on the durability of the compo-
sition, what kind of a character would
you create for her? An answer de-
ponds, of course, on an appraisal Of
Mabel's individuality and accomplish
ments, and may be you have never seen
her act.
The TaliaferrO children were stage
prOdigies- 1t is told of Mabel that, at
the age of IS months she was enough of
an actress to start and stop crying, in
the role Of an infant in arms, whca-
ever the cues were given. As she got
older she played Little Eva so much
that, tired of being the angelic enid,
she varied the death scene in Uncle
Toms Cabin" and stopped an audi
ence's flow of tears by shifting sudden
~ TO the antics of the kid in ''Peck's
Bad Boy" She never grew beyond a
childish stature, and manner. and 20
remained familiar in very young parts
until her marriage told the public that
she was woman.
MabePs husband has the money and
the desire to make a star actress Of
her; but such abilities as she possesses
the humor of juvenility that, as none
Of either can be spared from her outfit,
they need TO be blended in plays for her
use as an adult actress.
Edward PepIe has made the fou.th
play for Mabel TaliaferrO.
A Fourth Play.
Thompson Peples likes to be peculiar
in his writings, with oddly in his
theme and aesthetic originality In his
creations of character; so, if audiences
admire The Call of the Cricket
don't see now the author can possibly
agree with them; for it is in the Lolita
Crabtree and Maggie Mitchell stage
style of fifty years ago. He has meant
TO fill his purse. not sWeu his pride as
an advanced dramatist.
The Cricket is a hOylien from Ken
lucky, fresh like bluegrass verdure.
spirited like Bourbon whisky and frac-
tious like colts on the stock farm
where she was bred. On a visit to her
New York aunt, she amuSes a scion of
wealth and culture; and he, after
quarrel over her with his Jealous sweet
heart, impulsively marries the young
kentuckian. 1t is not an infinitive
match. She is a rough diamond that
can't be cut and polished fit for set
ting in fashionable New York society.
He IS ashamed Of her and she is heart
hurt. The outcome is the same, though.
as in a thousand such cases in old-time
fiction. When the unhappy Cricket gets
ready to go back to Kentucky, and
chirps 'twiXt sObs. If ever your heart
hears the call of the cricket 1 Will come
TO you" his ears of love open wide
right off and he implores her not to
leave him.
Audience Is Divided.
No audience could be more sharply
in TTIF cp11g rlf ha ba hot
saw The Cali of the Cricket" intro
duced- Mabel Taliaferro has the charm
of sanity smallness and seeming
youth; and she seems TO feeei what she
does either in jest or in earnest; but
her art is crude. and much of her eff
fort therefore Intellectual. The actress
and the author are jointly at their best
when to fool her dOting uncle from
Kentucky and her estranged husbands
deriding jilt, she makes a false show of
conjugal happiness that goes wild in q
dance and ends in a hysterical collapse.
1t won't do 10 scorn old stuff in new
plays off hand. The character liked BY
the entire audience was the same
brash, loquacious, hustling young fell
low that we meet constantly on the
stage and of. He is a popular type of
Americanism in plays, If acted agree
ably, although some times intolerable in
real life. This time he begins as q
salesman for a machine, loses a. Gus
toner and his job for telling the truth
about its defect, invents a device that
remedies the fault is taken back by
the company as a principal stockhold-
er and marries an heiress on a finan-
cialIy equal footing. The young come
dian who hits il off was William Har-
rigan. son of the New Harrigan of Har-
rigan and Hart memory-salary hither-
to fifty a week-hereafter two hundred.
Quotations in the market of actors go
away I'D in q night, sometimes, like
stocks iii Wall street.
Ibsen is no longer literary fad of
the theatre No longer are his plays
auarreled over. They are not disdained
by the many. as of yore, nor unduly
dotted on by the few. The mystic sym
bOlism that Ibsens early worshipers
dIscerned. but that he said he Rad
never been aware Of, is left out Of con-