The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-04-21
ANOTHER UNPLEASANT
PLAY BY Mr.. WALTER
Margaret Ellington Abandons Her
Promise to Quit Acting to
Darn Husbands Socks

! Eugene Walter has written another
one of those unpleasant plays, "Ir
Mrs. Maxwell's Mistake which wa.
presented with Margaret Ellington il
the title role at the Park, last night
The story hinges about three charac.
tiers, James Stewart, business man
played by Frederick Burton; Johr
Maxwell, the wife played by Ear
Brown and Miss Ellington. respective.
ly. Stewart offers Maxwell a bride t.
betray his employer by passing Ger.
tain material under grade The per,
fidy means a profit to Stewart Of s130.,
600. He offers Maxwell $4,000 for his
share. Maxwell desires to remain
honest but the wife, tired of the hum
drum Of the ordinary middle class
home, insists that her husband accept
the offer. He does SO much against
his conscience, sets his wife up in fine
apartments, takes to the stock market
and drink, is stripped. blackmails
Stewart at pistol point and makes a
fine wreck of it. The wife arrives in
time to tear up the check gained by
blackmafl. She then decides that she
loves her husband too much to strug-
gle longer for a foothold in high life
aud the pair so back to the humble
home on Staten Island. All of this
story is told with much force with
the assistance of four minor charac-
ters, Dick Simmis, newspaperman
and friend, by Ben Johnson; Mrs. Car
ter, by Miss Kenyon Bishop, Lizzie
the hired girl, by Amy Sumers: and
William the servant, by Robert vi
Wan.
The actual climax of the play is in
the third act when the wife and hus-
band reproach each other in the fierce
language of a bitter family row. At
this point the enthusiasm Of the house
was stimulated to- high pitch. Sew
eral curtain calls were given
The sworst of the play is it's fearful
futility. It seems to be an attempt
to expose the gross chicanery that
underlies modern fortune. 1t attempts
a feeble lesson in socialism. By reason
of the vague and uncertain physchol-
ogy of it's last act it arrives at no
goal. Mrs. Maxwell, whose impor-
tunities have made her husband a
thief, subject to the penal laws of
the State of New York, gets no new
morality by her experience She goes
back to her old life ''just because she
loves her husband more than anything
else" Her closing language is that
Stewards business methods are right
because he believes in them, and that
her husband is wrong because he
thinks he is wrong. which is indeed a
dangerously lunethical conclusion
What these men did was wrong be-
cause by their act they injured all
their fellow men. They combined to
destroy the fabric of integrity upon
which the relations of men must exist
if they are to stand at all That was
why the law made them criminals
That was why their own notions about
what they did are without validity.
Pretty notion to convey in a moral
ity" play that men may conspire to
steal and be sinless according to their
individual views of the Brightness or
wrongness of what they do. Miss Ill
ington made her part very real al
though the time she has been in Sc
clusion darning her husbands stock
ings has not improved her talents any
Messrs. Browne, Johnson and Burton
also gave forceful presentations of
their parts. The scenery was all that
could be desired