The Washington herald., 1913-11-16
By JULIA CHANDLER mANz.

u
Behold. a week where extremes meet.
and nothing is left to the imagination!
The Ziegfeld "Follies,' at the National.
DAMAGED Goods" at the Columbia. and
THE Blindness of Virtue at the Beiascol
Could any announcement conjure up
more interest or elicit more varied COM
ment from critic and layrnan alike?
To the hippant the coincidence which
has booked these three theatrical enter
tainments in the same city for the same
week furnishes unlimited opportunity for
puny puns, while the prudish and the
prejudiced will find a shock at every turn
of the road.
The latter class have had a yearly
warning that the Ziegfeld 'Follies'' are
designed for those persons who cling per-
sistently to their fiesh-pots, and reck not
of the spirit, a warning which usually
serves to pack the theater for the week
OF the engagement
This years vintage is said to be a
more magnificent panorama Of girls and
gowns and scenery than ever before, with
interpolated novelties galore; the live
liest entertainment yet furnished by Flo
Ziegfeid, than which no more could be
said
No gulf could be wider than that which
lies between the Ziegfeld annual and the
much-discussed Bieux play, Damaged
Goods" which this week will transform
the Columbia stage into a clinic-"a med
icaI lecture in the presence Of patients,
the producer assuming the audience TO
be the patients.
The Brieux drama is frank discussion
of venereal disease in its relation to mar
riage, a vital subject presented by Rich
ard Bennett and his co-workers In cru
sade in which the actor-producer has
won appreciable appreciation and sup
port.
Ghosts" the grim Ibsen play present
ed in America some years ago, dealt
more or less directly with the same sub
ject, while several other OF the Iosen
dramas have carried a thread of allusion
to the tragic result of unclean living, ex-
employing the Biblical assertion that
''the sins of the fathers shall be visited
upon the Children but 1t remained for
the French dramatist, Eugene Brieux,
to present the matter in a manner so
brutally frank that there can be no mis-
taking his purpose.
The history of the first American pro-
ductiOn of Damaged Goods" is unique.
The play was produced in Paris some
ten years ago, after which II was shelved
until Senator. Flynn of Pittsburgh hap
pened upon a copy of it in a book store.
His reading of it impelled him to intro
duce a bill in the legislature requiring
health certificate with every marriage
license. 1t was while this bill was pend
ing that the Senator met Richard Ben
nett and influenced him to read the
BrieuX drama
This was two years ago, since which
time Mr.. Bennett has fought indefatig-
ably for a place on the American stage
for the play; fight which has required
unparalleled courage and energy, and a
still greater faith in the serious-minded-
ness of the theater-going public.
WAS difficult matter to even acquire
a company capable of the virile acting
which the correct presentation Of Dam
aged Goods requires, because player
folk feared that their association with a
drama whose theme is the most dread
disease to which human flesh is heir,
might stigmatIze them in the eyes of the
public.
At last the indefatigable Bennett, de-
termined to realize his dream, succeeded
in assembling a group Of faithful CO.
workers and gave the first performance
of the thesis drama at the Fulton The
ater, New York, March II. 1913. The
players donated their services even as
Mr.. Bennett gave his own, and William
Harris, who owns the Fulton Theater,
made nc charge for the playhouse.
1t was a remarkable audience (com-
posed largely Of social workers, clergy
men, medical men, and educators), which
greeted the play as a sermon more pow
erful than could ever be preached from
any pulpit beginning a triumph for Mr..
Bennett that has been unprecedented IN
the history of the American stage.
Had Eugene BrieuN written Damaged
Goods" in this day of keen interest in
eugenics, he might be accused, with rea-
son, of a predominating Snowman in
stinct, but as facts stand We must con-
cede the dramatists claim to a serious
interest in the physical welfare OF the
human race and accept his powerful play
as a most solemn warning.
The most efficacious argument made for
the presentation of such a subject upon
the stage is that it is not pornographic,
and that it is therefore infinitely more
wholesome than the many salacious musi |
cal revues from which the immature un-
consciously borrow morals and manners. |
In further appeal for more comprehen- |
sive knowledge concerning questions of
sex comes Cosmo Hamilton's 1.-The Blind |
ness of Virtue" to the Belasco Theater |
this week, bringing its serious sermon to |
parents who place their own prudery and |
false sense of modesty above the actual |
welfare of their children.
Mr.. Hamilton's lesson is essentially to /
mothers, written as a warning to the |
maternal parent against the danger of |
allowing girls to reach womanhood with |
meager knowledge of the meaning Of the |
most potent impulses Of physical life.
4ue play Is Dy MOI
ris. who is said to have given it a splen-
did setting, while Mr.. Hamilton's lesson |
is presented by capable cast of Eng
lish player-folk, which leaves no criti-
cism for the play other than the much
mooted question of the advisability and
the effectiveness of the stage as a place |
for the presentation of the deeper prob
lens of life.
If the management of a theater were
able to go out into the ''byways and |
hedges" and round up just the class of |
folk for whom the lesson of a play is |
intended, there could be no question that
a subject vitality and artistically pre-
sented in the form of drama has q tre- ,
mendous influence for good The point |
which raises the most practical objection |
to a brutally frank discussion of sex |
questions on the stage is that indiscrm- |
mate audiences will witness the presenta-
ton of the discussion; the very fact that |
a theatrical manager cannot gather in |
the folk for whom the sermon has oeen /
written, nor say to the man who does
not need its lesson: Stay at home
In the case of Damaged Goods" at I