The sun., 1910-02-09
MARY MANNERING'S NEW PLAY
"A MANS WORLD" PRODUCED
AT THE COMEDY THEATRE.
Rachel CrOtIers's Heroine a Fighter
Against n VAryInS standard Of Morals
for the Man and the WOman-ChRrlos
Rlchman Appears aS Lending Man.

| Tor the Wan ana dne W WOtnau-NnnrlGs
RIchman Appears rs Lending Man.
Miss Mary Mannering came back to the
local stage last evening. She has been
away in that outer theatrical darkness
known as "the one nights for long time.
All last season she was trying TO find play
that she thought fit to bring here to show
U.S. She didn't succeed, though she tried
several. until she produced Miss Rachel
Crothers's "A Mans World in which
she appeared last evening at the Comedy
Theatre before large and much inter
ested audience
| Miss Crothers is perhaps best known to
us as the author of The Three of Us,"
which. despite one conventional act and
not wholly plausible story. made us re-
member il on account OF the sincerity OF
it's observation and the depth and truth
of it's picture of a sisters love for her
erring brother. Miss CrOthers lis not yet
finished playwright. She keeps on doing
some things that she oughtnt TO do with
80 much persistence that il begins to look
doubtful IL she ever will thoroughly learn
! the tools of her trade.
At the same time she does lot OF real
thinking before she sits down to write
and she knows how 10 tell what she has
been thinking about. Moreover, in pretty
nearly everything she has ever written
for the stage there is at least one really
poignant human scene that leaves vivid
memory. There was one such scene last
night.
A Mans World tells the story OF
one woman who declined to accept the
double standard" OF, morals--one for
men and another for women-even though
her declination TO do so took from her
the man she loved. 1t wrung her heart
to send him away. but her sense OF JUS
tice to her sex would not allow her TO
accept excuses from him which he would
not have accepted from her had their
positions been reversed.
| The woman i'm the case bore the mas
culine name of Frank Ware. She was a
member of a semi-demi-hemi-liter
artistic group living in an old New York
house near Washington Square. There
were a violinist. a singer, a painter and
| Frank herself, who made a living by writ
ing things for publication. Frank had
adopted a little boy in PRIis and brought
him back to live with her. The child
ives the son of an unfortunate girl who
died in Franks home abroad without
telling who the boys father was. Among
I FrGHks American admirers was a man
named Malcolm GdskeH. Franks friends
boy and GasteH and they begin to talk
scandal regarding GGsksH and Fr0tk.
After Gaskeu had dec Jared his love
and has been accepted the scandalous 8
talk comes to FraHk's ears. ConsCi GUS
OF her own innocence, she yet begins
to see the resemblance between the boy
and GdskeH
she ultimately resolves to get to the
heart OF the matter and abruptly men,
tions the name OF the boys mother and
asks GdskeH il he ever knew her. The
man. who ia really the father OF the child.
though he had not known IL up to then.
is unable to conceal the truth. But he
does not give up without a struggle.
He admits that he and the boys mother
were lovers. but he says he did not desert
her. She left him leaving note de-
claring that she could not go on doing
wrong and thar he was unable to get any
| trace OF her.
But this does not satisfy Frank. Cos
ken, she declares has been guilty of an
offence which he would not have for
given her. He admits that this is the
fact. Very well then, she says, in effect.
what is sauce for the goose shall be sauce
for the gander. So far as she Is concerned
there shall be one moral law both for men
and for women. So she sends the man
she loves out of her life forever.
1t is a pretty strong case that MISS
Crothers makes out. She argues through
her play that IL women would not accept
men knowing that they were bad they
would be good. That is to say that women
themselves. by condoning mems offences
against the moral law are responsible FOR
the existence OF the double standard OF
which they complain 80 much. The mas
culine case is put thus into the mouth OF
Gs:hsa 81 This = "a man: world. MAN Man
she's better than he Ii and he demands
that she be--and IL she isn't she's got to
suffer for IL That's the whole business
in a nutshell
Whatever may be ones views on this
subject, it 10 a subject proper for dramatic
discussion, and Miss Cr0thers has made
an interesting though not a great play
about II. No play proves anything. or
ever can. For the most part, too, the
author has made her play dramatic and
not forensic. Most OF her discussion she
preents legitimately in the form Of action,
and some Of it gets a strong grip on an
audience.
Il must be said however, that she has
not drawn the character OF GdskeH very
convincingiy. He In. or the whole. rather
sketohy. a lay figure on which 10 drape
the conventional masculine theory re-
garding what's TO be properly expected
OF women. She bites on the end OF her
play rsther arbitrarily. too. Gdakeu
would scarcely have departed 80 abruptly
from the life OF the woman he loved. It's
q bit az IN the author had said: well. my
Ipeint's made. Ring down the curtain.
Let the play 90 hang
The character drawing is somewhat
uneven, but on the whole IL has much sin
certify. The character of Clara Oaks, a
miniature painter, is particularly human.
She is a type that everybody knows,
one Of the most pitiful things in the world.
a plain. unattractive !spinster, never
i pretty and now getting oh toward middle
life. She's tried Tor ten years to do some
thing worth while, but she has no talent
only infinite longing. No man has ever
aslxed her TO marry him. No man ever
will. She's just an unattractive. common
place failure, with q lonely, loveless, toll
ing old age ahead Of her. There's real
tragedy for you. IL you hke-the sort that
everybody knows.
oh" she cries in her misery. some
times feel that I'D be willing to be pretty
and bad and have my fling" It's an un-
commonly vivid and truthful sketch and
last night IL was very truly and touchingly
played by Miss Helen Ormsbee, whose
acting won her the tribute Of many a
furtive tear.
Miss Mannering has a part to. which
her hiatriOniC reROurCNR ara well adantnd