The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-03-27
NEW NEW YORK PLAYS
BY FRANKLIN FYLES.

nj W YORK. March 26.-"After the
i Opera" is not a blithe frolic;
but is, as advertised, "a daring drama
of horror" In one paragraph [ can
give its plot sufficient for a long novel
OF love and crime, with a mystery left
over for detectives to clear up. If you
are an amateur fictionist, you may get
good practice by writing this out
lengthily. You will have to adjust
your conscience. though, to the ever
lasting theme of matrimony that isn't
square, but three-angled with a hus-
band. wife and another man.
The wife comes home from the opera,
where the husband got a summons to
Philadelphia. She is tagged into the
house by the husbands dearest friend,
who is her lover. The wickedness isn't
abhorrent to her. but she breads TO be
caught at it. Hearing a light foOtstep,
she slrmises that the husband has
missed his train and hustles the lover
out through a window. However, the
intruder is a burglar, who chokes her to
death and escapes, while policemen ar
rest the lover. The husband has come
back, too, and he discerns at once
that they have not caught the house
breaker, but a e-breaker. For re-
venge he accuses the lover of killing
the wife during her resistance of lib
ertine assault. Then the lover shoots
himself and falls dead across the body
of the wife.
A CHASTITY Story.
The bare facts look to be naught else
than CHASTITY, but few particulars will
show vivid drama of ethics and emo
tons as well as grim horror. The lover,
on realizing that he is in the wife's
boudoir, where she has thrown off her
opera gown and put on a nightrobe, re-
calls that the husband has this same
day lent him money to save his honor
as a gamester. and he has scruples
about his dastardly exploit; but the
wife is eager for a liaison; so quite I'M
usually the hbertine takes the sympa-
thy away from the woman, with his de-
sire to retreat and hers to go ahead.
So much for the love story.
The element of red melodrama, al
though stale in the mistaking of a mid
night wooer for a robber, is thrillingly
theatric, A timid servant creates an
atmosphere of apprehension at the out
set by locking and barring against
the neighborhood. When the wife is
left alone, she hastily disrObes. turns
down the light, and makes believe to
be asleep She doesn't see, until the
CLEAN of a dark lantern strikes her
face, that the new intruder isn't her
husband, but a masked burglar. Then
her screams of fright compel him to
silence her. He drags her from the bed
by her hair and chokes her to death
as brutality as any Bill Sykes ever did
a Nancy.
Don't you like those old-time trans
formations of scene such as, for ex-
ample, used to show Boucicault's
Shaun the Post in a cell breaking out,
and then, Immediately by turning of
the wall, climbing down outside? Like
that in After the Opera" tne burglar
is seen to sneak from a doorway and
elude two policemen, while they catch
the lover as he drops from window,
and the husband arrives in the nick of
time TO identity the prisoner. A shift
back TO she dead woman's room, and
over her corpse the two men face each
other-the culprit penitent and the ac-
cuser vengeful: and isn't it an agitant
conclusion-the Toor fellow shooting
himself for being his friends wife's
lover rather than go to the guillotine?
EngIishsd From French.
The guillotine? Yes, this drama is
Englished from the French; and l de-
scribe it thus fully because it is among
theatres, blend art. literature and SEN
sationalism III a manner Impractical
by American playwrights for the multi
tude Here, although well performed
IT is misplaced In a music hall.
The Theatre Antoine is not the only
French source of remarkable hour-long
dramas with sufficient substance and
ingenuity TO fill a whole evening choke
full of interest. The one described
comes from the Grand Grign0l; and
several other Paris theatres are devoted
to outputs OF oddly, from grave to
gay. and, pity tbs. the salacious. too.
OF American origin, though, is the con-
densed piece written for Fannie Ward
by Roi Cooper Magrue, who had ample
and intimate experience at play-mak-
ing as an agent and adviser of Clyde
Fitch.
IAN Unlucky Star" goes this way. A
momentary furry to focus all eyes on
the stage center and then Fannie gets
there in the guise of favorite actress
radiant in a gown as beautiful as her
self. She Is neglected By her husband,