The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1912-11-15
SOCIAL AND PERSONAL
Mrs. BerryhIll, Editor.
Telephone 14o. kindly report as early s-con-
venient
Little Women" on the Stage

Little Women" on the Stage
Louise Alcott's Little Women" has
been dramatized by Jessie Bonstelle
and Marian DeForrest, a well known
actress and playwright, and presented
in New York City with great success.
This success is owing to the story,
which being undramatic in the ex-
treme and containing only the thinnest
thread OF plot, has so wrapped itself
about the hearts of thousands by its
simple chronicle of middle-class
family-the kind of people we are
full of humanity and sentiment and
free from theatrical effect and studied
emotion.
The first scene is said to be laid in
the March home, which, down to the
minutest detail, is exactly like that in
the old Alcott horse, which, thanks to
the club women of Massachusetts,
stands to-day as it did when Bronson
Alcott, the father of Louise, studied
and discussed transandentalism with
Emerson and those other New England
philosophers, and when Louise first ex-
ercised her literary talent by writing
dime novels.
The play opens in the sitting room
of the March home, with the four girls
discussing the throes of poverty
especially severe around Christmas.
Christmas won't be Christmas with
out any presents, grumbled 10,
sprawled on a hearth-rug over book
Meg is giving sisterIy advice to pretty
Amy, and gentle Beth is darning the
family stockings. Laurie appears in
this first act and the rehearsal of JOS
Christmas play takes place. In this
rehearsal 10 struts about as the dash
ing Roderigo in pair of boots worn
by the original 10" herself, and which
she got from friend who had a
friend who knew a real actor. This
act also includes the sacrifice of her
splendid chestnut hair for household
expenses, and the arrival of a wire from
war headquarters at Washington which
takes the faithful "marmee' to her
husbands bedside.
The second act brings marmee"
and the invalid father home, and 10
has her first dime novel published,
which pays the doctors bill and lays
the paror carpet. Meg's sweetheart,
honest John Brooke, appears here,
much to JOS disgust Here Laurie,
overcome by the love affair, proposes
to 10 and is refused with scorn. Pro-
fessor Baehr, JOS future, appears, and
so does sharp-tongued Aunt March.
The curtain falls with Amy, a vision of
loneliness arrayed for her first ball,
hesitating on the stairs as she listens to
"marmee" comforting the love-lorn
Laurie and telling him that he will
meet sweeter girl than 10 some day.
When Laurie turns to fasten Amy's
glove, one realizes that his real love
affair has begun.
In the third act Meg and John have
been married two years and their ire
pressibIe twins, Daisy and Demi, APP
pear. Amy and Laurie have a love
scene. Beth dies and then 10 and her
professor have their love scene. The
chief trouble is the fact that 10 and
Laurie wouldn't marry" said Miss
Bonstelle. 1t wasn't right for them
to do so, though all readers wanted
them to. Girls seem to think that the
dramatization was made just to remedy
the disappointments in the book, but
this is not so. We have followed the
true story in every way"