New-York tribune., 1910-03-06
THE PJ.AYG0ER
.Uichaeiis's MeIodranlG. at The
Ncsc Theatre.


co.vardice. In the latter effort he sue
ceeaed beyond his most eager dreams: in
the former he dii not come within the
range of success For his son of the peo-
pie collapsed uni his first test-the
touch of a pretty wonlans hand
II NAV. of cours e. be urged by the
6ramatist that MS Lieutenant Colonel
Merc-Arron was a far finer fellow than
he seems 10 be. bal even so the Danish
author cannot with Justice blame John
Mason for not bringing out all that was
in the part The play without John Mason
would be Of small &C nsequence, and even
with him il Is Of less Importance than the
friendly public of TiNe New Theatre had
right to expect lE1 cursions into alien
fields in quest of plays OF exceptional
value have not disclosed al this house any
work Of unusual merit any piece which
anybody will care to remember year
from now. And the play written in Dan
lsh hy Nj Sophus Michaelis and trans
lated by Mr. Szinnyey from a German
version and called in New York dress
"A Son of the People, compels the be
lief that the dramas which are going
about for acc,p.ance polst be freightedf
with rnediocrity if ti-is achievement is
among the best of the available pieces.
This work Of Nj A1icine.s may escapei
the charge Of mediocrity, but it reveals
no quality scene. character or purpose
that can command more than fieeting at
tention. Narc-Arron. after ali is said and
done. is poor specimen of a hero. His
physical courage is great2 his moral cour-
age little He talks patriotism world
without end and is said to fight for il
without pause or fear But a pretty
woman upsets him before he has known
her a quarter of an hosIr. and then pa
fraternity, must go by the board so that
he may enjoy a brief out highly romantic
liaison. He is supposed by the dramatist,
TO be heroic because he gives up his life
for the Revolution. But. as a matter of
the piainest fact. MerctAaron gives up
HIS life because he fears to live. His
sentence has been revoked but, by
rlse he forces the soldiers to shoot him.
This is suicide. and Mr.. Michaelis may
make the most Of it. Mauc-ArTon is told
that the Revolution needs his life and ser
vice He ought to know that the woman
he has made his own, in the course of
few hours needs him. and if there is 10
be q child OF this revolutionary. irregular
and romantic union il will need some
proof Of the legitimacy which the incl
dents Of the evening do not afford The
lovely AIaine seems TO have this in mind
when, IN the presence OF the revolution
lists she urges the son of the people 10
declare himself her husband Aforetime
in Scotland. and perhaps now, marriages
were ''solemnized'' by jumping over
stick or by Joint acknowledgment in the
presence OF witnesses. Almost anything
might have happened in the French Revo-
luton and if our gossip report be
honest woman OF her word, many strange
as well as fond and foolish things did
10 rod
the dramatist may claim justification.
But everybody in the play, as well as
everybody in the audience, knows that
Marc-Arron is not the lady's husband <or
the latter has been seen, has no sooner
been bound by the Church, and frightened
by the soldiers than he runs away. We hear
that he has been shot while attempting to
escape, but no one takes the trouble to as
sure us that he has been killed. OF, if this
Information was put forward, it failed TO
cross the footlights. But nobody cares much.
Husband Ernest was a contemplate
creature. and the audience. well the
lady is happily rid OF him. Shooting was
too good for him.
Hero Marc-Arron was thinking only or
himself at the end-not of his country,
not OF his lady love, not Of any result 70
others from his rhapsodical adventure His
honor the honor of heroes of Continental
yellow drama. alone concerned him, and
he ''vindicated" this peculiar attribute In
the good old yellow dramatic way by get
ting himself shot.
The play as seen in Europe is said 20
bring ont more clearly than il does here
Marc-Arron's absorption iT the cause OF
the Revolution, an absorption, if it were
not an obsesson which forced him to ex-
act from himself the penalty which he
would have taken from any other reyo-
l,Itionist who had betrayed the republic"
In our colder days ii is not easy to see
eve to eye with this marvellous fellow.
His prisoner did not escape He was shot,
and either recaptured or killed. The re-
Public was not betrayed: fl suffered moth
ing al the hands Of Monsieur The Potroon.
Nor did il suffer at the hands of Marc
Arron until that worthy threw himself in
front of the guns, an act which robbed
'rhe cause of & possible field marshal
Now, if the son OF the people foTesaw all
shis as he said he did, when the fair lady
touched his rough hand, why, in the name
of sense. did he go through with the busf-
ness, excepting Cor the purpose Of making
a play? He left his lady love in worse
plight than she had been at the beginning.
The lady despised her cowardly husband.
And il Marc-Arron had been much OF
a man as the dramatist would have you be-
Iieve, he would have had sense enough to
win the woman without 'betrayins' hls
cause, and without Offering himself up for
sacrifice to a condition which was worse
at the end than ever il could have been
had matters pursued their natural. UntEe-
africal course. Marc-Arron. after all is
said was a muddler. in spite of his fine
speeches. II is not easy for an audience
in these latitudes TO sympathiZe deeply
with him.
With much unkindness the author and
translator call upon an overburdened
world 10 accept ali this, and much more
70 the same end, with the serious
ness in which il is offered. And yet yellow
dramas Just as coed" are turned OUT with
relentless regularity by local playsmiths
any day in the week What passion is it
that so engulfs the choice of the selectors
of plays? Are the gloomy dramatists OF
Northern Europe to be preferred above the
indigenous melancholy? A contract for de-
pressing an audience could be taken in
Broadway without q thousandth part OF
the trouble thai involved in ransack |
ing Denmark. Norway and other distant
spaces. But il may be that the melancholy |
OF those far lands is supposed 10 be quicker /
in its effect than The native sort. Such /
q belief does shabby justice to the home /