El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-11-30
THE CITY, A GREAT
PLAY FULL Of
TRUTH
Clyde Fitch's Last Play
Shows How Fate" Can
Overcome Ambition.
CBy Ottoman stevens,)

Dramatic Critic Los Angeles Examiner.
There are only two classes of people
to whom I would recommend seeing
.The City" Clyde Fitch's last play, FL
Pasp saw it last noght.
One is the very, very good, and the
other the very, very, very bad.
OF course that classification makes
all Of you safe
1t always does the very very good
people a deal of benefit to be shocked;
they will come away and say that the
play is simply horrible, my dear; you
must see it,
And the very, very, very bad-they
will see Truth in a shocking state OF
nudity that awful, unashamed crea-
ture. 1.-The Naked Truth" And they
will find that they are not so bad
after all; that their sins are the sins OF
those who went before them, and that
they could be worse, and mayhap viii
be better.
Frankly, it is the most horrible play
1 have ever seen, and just as frankly
it is the most powerful picture Of that
part of life which we usually, with
success, try to conceal even from oPr
own selves.
The second act in comparison with
that famously appalling third act 81
Ghosts" makes the latter seem like
a Kindergarten comedy of the path.
ology of damnation-
Fitch "Swiped- Ideas.
Mr.. Fitch frankly "swiped" ideas
whenever he found himself the obJect
of the bad luck of having some writer
before him appropriate some idea ne
needed. 1t is therefore no discredit
TO his brilliant memory to say that
1.-The Pillars of Society" was plagarized
from what he would have written II
he had antedated that drama byIbsen
for there is much of it in The CITY
eff he did steal a few of the pillars
I am glad of it, for by rending 1bsen
temple he has proved himself sam
son of dramaturgy-
There is no use in boring you with
the story for it has been written
about more than any modern play. and
il would be an impertinence TO assume
that you do not know it
IT is all as memorable as Thy SIN
shall find thee out" and pictures the
utter futility of trying co buy off retri-
button.
A father finds the wages of sin IS
death after trying to make CONNER
cial pact to cover his youthful foily'
the son has to pay the debt to divine
instice-pav it in full with the most
terrific compound interest ever por-
traved the torment of the innocent.
II is not the seventh commandment
that concerns the play, but that otheI
which visits the sins of the father unto
the children even of the third ana
fourth generation.
The Frightfui Plot.
Frightful? Why you feel an eternai
crouch because your great-grandfather
did not leave you a moral balance
sheet of his life so you could sidessep
What may he coming to you.
Superficially, the play is study OF
country and city life and the stress
of moral obliquity found in each. You
NAV condemn Mr.. Fitch for finding II
necessary in this to picture an inegiti-
mate son, a degraded slave of NOR
mime as marrying his half sister ana
wrecking the career of the half brother
who had done his best to build up the
miscreant's life You may also. per-
haps with good judgment, abhor the
fact of that same degenerate picturlng
with sickening fidelity TIE physical
collapse of the neurethenic; there is no
clinic where the tubercles on his spinal
cord are displayed, but you know they
are there and the knowledge makes
you feel sick.
But the play strikes clearly on the
crystal bell of Hope, and from out of
the depths of infamy mans soul rises
clean, and fit for a Man.
Actint: Very Good.
The acting is very good; that of Nor
man Hackett, as the son who has 70
paw. though perhaps a bit over careful,
| is compelling and uplifting.
Hammock" the illegitimate son and
J drug fiend, is so superbly done oy
Godfrey c. Stein as to make 1T a pic
ture Of horror that 1 fear will always
remain in my memory. A delightful
| character bls is the father by NJ. FL.
Hartman and the mother by Josephine
F. Shepherd is no less Interesting.
| Arthur Hall makes Of Bert voorhees,