The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1911-11-15

Bernard Shaw came to Washington
last night through the medium Of what
he styles "a sermon in crude melo-
Drama" the celebrated Showing Up of
Blanco Posnet," which bears the dis
tinctIon Of having been barred from per
formance in England because the lord
chamberlain, who acts as dramatic
censor across the sea- averred that II
was blasphemous and immoral, and his
word was law, even though such men
as William Archer, Granville Barker, and
Forbes Robertson saw fit to dispute his
conclusions.
The Shaw play was presented by the
Irish Players at the Belasco Theater last
evening. It is by long odds the cleverest
the most interesting, and the most grip
ping play they have presented to the
Washington public. Glacial in its bril-
lance. replete with paradoxes which keep
the mind constantly aglow with delight,
epigrammatic but never shallow, and
with a dramatic action that does not
lag, IT is easily one Of the best of the
Shaw plays.
BInnco as a Convert.
Blanco Posnet is a likely candidate for
the hangm---'s moose in a Nevada mining
camp because he stole a horse. He was
wild, bad man. who knew neither God
hut Lie lear Vi HOu, Dul when Ho jump
ed camp" with the horse he found
mother and babe in his path. and Blan-
CO, for once forgetting how bold and bad
he was sacrificed his chance of escape
to saYe the life of the babe. That is how
the hangman had almost got the moose
arOInd his neck, when some typical
ST. avian paradoXes come along in their
cr.rious, characteristic way.
To tell the full tale of the spiritual re-
Rlanrn would "a ha r.
! less task. But here is some of Blanco's
philosophy when he has decided that the
rotten game" is no longer for him:
You bet He didn't make us for moth
ing. and He wouldn't have made us at
all II He could have done His work
without us. That must be what we're
for. He'd never have made us to be
rotten, drunken blackguards, like me, and
good-for-nothing rips like Feemy. He
made me because He had a Job for me.
He let me run loose until the job was
ready, and then l had to come along and
do it, hanging or no hanging. And I tell
it didn't feel rotten. 1t felt bully, Just
bully. Anyhow. 1 got the rotten
feel of me for a minute Of my
life, and I'll go through fire to
get II of me again. I'm failure as a
bad man. No more paths for me. No
more broad and narrow; no more good
and bad. There's no good and no bad:
but, gents, there's a rotten game and
there's great game. played the rotten
game, but the great game was played on
me; and now I'm for the great game
every time. Let US adjourn to the saloon,
gentleman. I stand the drinks
This is the play in nutshell. II was ex
cellently acted by Fred O'Donovan as
Blanco Posnet, J. A. O'Rourke as Elder
Daniels, J. NJ. Kerrigan as Strapper
Kemp, and Sara Allgood as Feemy Evans.
The two other plays of the triple bill
were 'Birthright" and The Rising of
the Moon
"BIrthriEht" Peasant Play.
"Birthright' deals with an Irish family
OF the peasant class and tells of the Bit
ter feeling engendered by jealousy held
for the elder son. Hugh, by the father
and younger son, Shane. 1t is a gripping
and yet grewsome exposition of parental
hardness and bitterness, eliminating in
the murder of 'gh by Shane. II is
splendidly done by Fred O'Donovan as
Hugh, J. NJ. Kerrigan as Shane, Sydney
J. Morgan as the father, and Eileen
O'Doherty as the mother.
The Rising of the Moon is in a some
what lighter vein. The action takes
place on the side of a quay in a seaport
town, where a sergeant of police is sta
toned on the lookout for a notorious
criminal who has broken jail. A ballad
singer comes along and is stopped by the
sergeant, who tells him of the reward
of e1OO offered for the capture of the
convict. The two agree to watch together
and sit back to back on a barrel sing
| ing old Irish airs that bring memories 10
| the sergeant of the time when he was
not on the force. The singer is dis
covered to be the jail breaker, but the
sergeant lets him go, and the curtain
| falls as the policeman speculates as to
| just how much Of a fool he was to have
missed the reward. ]. NJ. Kerrigan ap-
pears as the sergeant and Fred O'Dono-
| van as the ballad singer.