The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1910-09-24
The CITY TO Be
in FARGO MONDAY
1T is A POWERFUL AND TERRIFY-
ING DRAMA OF DEGENERAcY-
PRODUCTION SCORED GREAT
HIT IN MINNEAPoLIS-FARGo-
ANS SEE 1T MONDAY.

Minneapolis Journal: In his last
play, the portentous and frightful The
City, Clyde Fitch finally revealed him
self thorough going Ibsenite. The
play is quite in the terrible old mans
manner 1t discloses highly respect
able family N a small town, whose
head. George Rand, is really a crook.
Underneath his responsibility is con-
cleaded a life of INSCRIPTIONS acquisi-
tiveness,. cankered by an early sin
rainst woman. Their degenerate
Ibis and hers-comes back to
.ackmail him and to hector him into
heart failure. After his death his wife,
son and two daughters go to the great
city that has long beckoned them. The
character which the father has trans
mitted to the children, as well as the
degenerate half-brother-the secret of
whose birth is known only to George,
the legitimate son and not even to
Hammock, the illegitimate one himself,
and to whom the family falls heir-ul-
timately involve them all in ruin.
The ruins OF the Rands was newt
able 1t was the fruit of the fathers
character and the fathers sins. He
had practiced business robbery stay
ing always on the safe side of the
! criminal line. He had instructed his
| son in his business methods Trans
planted to New York, that son applies
| the principles to great affairs and sue
ceeds wonderfully in a worldly sense.
| He climbs rapidly and the nomination
| for governor, with all the opportuni-
| ties for a great career it implies, is
| just within his grasp, when the things
his father prepared begin to happen.
| They sweep along in a swelling tide
of horror. They reach a climax when
| George Rand discovers that his young
err sister and his degenerate secretary,
have that very morning been secretly
! married. His wild efforts to prevent
the contamination of the marriage,
eliminating iR1his disclosure to Han
mock, of the relationship really exist
| ing between the pair, leads to a scene
of unparalleled and tragic violence
one such as perhaps none but Fitch
would have had the audacity to per-
4 petrate.
Hammock is dope fiend. He wildly
denounces the revelation as a lie-in-
PRODUCING an oath such as never before
WAS heard on the stage. To prevent
Cicely from hearing the truth he shoots
her dead and turns the weapon on him
self, but George is In time to balk The
lsuicide. Then follows wild and neu-
rotic scene. Hammock tries every fren-
zied argument possible to persuade
George to let him have the revolver
lit is a frightful, morbid picture Of
trembling, desperate degeneracy, su
perbly acted by Geoffrey Stein on the
lines originally laid down in New Yorl
by Tully Marshall.
But not even clyde Fitch had thu
courage to go through with the squaliC
story to an Ibsen finish. He pictures
George Rand as giving up all the fruits
of his methods, as abandoning all am
bition, as even giving up the girl h
loves in his self abasement and his de
termination to start all over again a
the bottom and to come up ION tn
level" And the girl. her face elori
fed by love and faith. accepts his re
solve as proof of his regeneration an
agrees to marry him.
1t is a powerful drama. There's n
! question of that.
The production at the Shubert las
: night was a thoroughly effective one
I Norman Hackett fits the personality Q
young George Rand to nicely. Nj
Hackett plays straight and direc
There is no subtlety in his methods
J hnt rather a masculine directness tha
: well belts the role. OF Geoffrey Stein
! realistic picture of the dope fien'
r nervous, irritable, dreaming gree
!. dreams, scrupling at nothing, finall
!, desperate and frenzied, there is bl
one possible descriptive term-wor
y derful.
Perfect types have been selected K
the other roles, quite in the moder
i managerial manner. M. ii. Hartman |
= the senior Rand and Josephine f SheI
. pard as his shallow, unstable wife, al
: admirable. So. too, Is Ethel Martin l
IS the older sister, bitten with the san
!: selfishness that cursed all the Rand
lsusanne villa, as the younger siste