The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-09-18

Sentimentalists will find much to inter est them in Mother" a new play by Jules EclSert Goodman, which recently had its premier at the Racket theatre but unfortunately the vast majority of our theatre-goers are not sentimentalists As may be surmised, the mother of six children is the dominant figure ir this new piece, and all the minor figures are drawn accumulate the beautiful qualities of the principal.
 Two small children serve to throw the light on the mothers tenderness; her two wayward sons bring out the quality of a mothers love, and two self-cen- tered daughters supply the contrast to a mothers unselfish character.
 Realism is desirable quality in any play, and MT. Goodman can lay claims to this quality at least. But in his effort 10 faithfully portray the incidents com mon in American home life, he has over looked the fact that these incidents are not always of public interest
 It deals with an ordinary. everyday subject flooded with sentiment.
 Brother Will had married an actress. who squandered his money and made it necessary for him to come to mother to borrow. He had embedded from the firm he worked for. And mother. unsus- pecting the real purpose of his visit had been overjoyed to hear that after a four years absence from his home-the catty, selfish actress wife was at the bottom of the troube-he was coming back.
 But when he asked for $10,000 and Mother" realized that 1t would mean ruin to the whole family, to Wills two sisters as well as Walter, the second son. and the twins, Mother, on the ad- vice of the family lawyer who by and by turned out to have had something more than platonic intentions all the time well, she refused to let him have the cash. And thereupon he had forged her name to note and was in danger of going to jail unless Mother stood by the signature and the girls agreed to give up all they had. Which. of course, they did, though Mother alone seemed to be entirely unselfsh about 1t.
 But Mother certainly didn't have a jolly time of it. Will had hardly had time to get himself and her in all sorts of trouble before waNer started in to make the same sort of mess. And, most curious of all. the budding prima donna on whom the second son expected to spend all his money was sister to the first catty actress who had brought Wilrs disgrace on the family However, Mother had had her lesson. And she -.,crcoaed in deceving the girl. who as soon as she believed that Walter had n9L dollar in the world. told him and his family to go-well. to a place that isn't mentioned in polite society
 That was the point of greatest laugh ter in the play helped along not little by the vigorous way in which Miss Jane Corcoran delivered the impolte injunc- ton. Miss Corcoran, like her character, was direct at any rate, and most of the others weren't, especially Agatha the oldest daughter, who was. persistent ly and perversely blind to her own inter- ests. Harry Lake loved Agatha. but Agatha, for some reason in no sense conveyed. insisted upon believing that he loved her little sister Leonore. Even when he sent her flowers she turned them over to Sister Leonore. When he came to propose Agatha led mother to think that it was Leonore he wanted. And poor blind mother never suspected. either Agatha never would have been married if Harry hadn't finally induced her to elope. which brought farce com edy scene to the otherwise serious pro- ceedings.