The San Francisco call., 1913-08-11
Nature, Backed and Allotted
by the Clubrnen, Realizes
Picture of the On1i-
nous Ug
SCORE SIGNIFICANT
WITH RARE BEAUTY
Production Not as Notable
From Literary Viewpoint
: as in Scenic Scheme
By WALTER ANTHONY

description is needless and for those
who do not go 1t Is futile.
Rufus Steele had a vision, Herman
Perlet worked it out musically, and
nature. backed and abetted by Frank
Matthew, Edward Duffy, George de Long
ct al. realized the picture of Ug, the
god of fear, last Saturday night.
Scenicauy the spectacle was superb
His face illumined with red and green
lights, Ug stood against the black sky.
He crumbled in the last act, when the
prince discovered that he was but card
board.
Up till that moment, however. Ug
loomed ominously and seemed to be as
real as the redwoods that hemmed him
in or the night that f1uttered at the
tops of the illumined trees.
MAGNIFICENT VISTA
From a literary point of Aview The
Fall of Ug" Is not as notable as it is in
scenic scheme. The author has worked
out a magnificent pictoriaI vista, in
which the element of speech is scarcely
essential to the propulsion of his vigor-
Gus thought.
Musica1ly THE Fall of Ug'' has many
moments of complete exaltation.
The score, by Herman Perlet, is sig
nificant with beauty.
A violin theme of deep tenderness
.vitalizes The Dance of the Fairies; a
"woodwind duet distinguishes an In
termezzo," and If you scratch the score
of THE Dance of the Fanatics" you
will surely find the Tartar. 1t is gilt
teringly barbaric, and Perlet has in 1t
disclosed a fine feeling for orchestral
color Of much originality.
SIX TYMPANI DRUMS
Six tympani drums are employed in
the deep. rhythmic foundation of the
splendidly conceived composition.
In the presentation of the work the
biggest forces of Bohemia were in
volved. There were no stars shining
with single effulgence, but there was
a constellation.
Ralph L. Phelps was the prince whose
fearlessness annulled fright and sent
Ug into a heap of harmless canvass.
Richard Hotaling was the high priest
of Ug, and his voice. mellow, yet large,
was epic in its bigness.
Mackenzie Gordon was the Jester,
for whose especial opportunity Perlet
and Steele conspired in a song, when
the Sweets of the World Have Been
Captured"
AN ENCORE DENIED
Gordon's Interpretation of this num-
ber nearly broke up the high jinks,"
for tie audience wasn't willing to let
the song pass without its earned-but
denied-encore.
William H. Smith Jr was sort of
Puck, called, in this ''masque of fear"
Trip. He was quite as effective in his
oratorical as in his physical flights,
and flew about the head of Ug, up
raised between the redwoods, with as
much grace as Maude Adams flies
about the Darling home in Peter
Pan"
To finish AIT once the role of honor
bcR rfv VI dsff n icrT,
inks in Bohemian grove, Sonoma
county, held Saturday night. August g.,
let me say that E. Courtney Ford, as
the king. and father of the intrepid
prince; Henry L. Perry. as priest with
a musical message; John Housman, as
a patriarcha1 priest. and Spencer Grant
as a young priest distinguished them
selves in a company of distinction.
QUAINT FAIRY DANCE
One of the features that made for
excited approval was the fairy
dance" which was executed by youth
full members of the Columbia Park
Boys club, headed, literally. by Ru-
dolph Hing, Thomas w. Lucy, Z. w.
Hause Jr. and Thornton I. High, who
made dizzy flights from sequoia col
lonades and spun in the face of Ugs
stolid countenance.
The music here fitted the flight of
the fairies and was as untrammeled as
Steeles vision.
This spectacle was staged with un-
faltering smoothness by William H.
8 Smith Jr., and was illumined no less
by the music by Perlet than by the
lights by Duffy.
Wyatt H. Allen, according to the
program. was In charge of the wires
which invisibly upheld the dancers"
whose confidence in the engineer was
unmarried by accident.
NO CURTAIN RISES
No curtain rises in Bohemia grove to
admit the vision. Trees rise on all
sides like columns, and the night sup
plies the roof
Transcepting part of the circle is the
stage" under which, screened by foli-
age throbs the orchestra.
Back of the stage rises Ug, the vis-
ible symbol of fear. A picture of him
is circulated in the printed book of the
play. Granville Redmond painted 1t
from a figure by Douglas Tilden, but
the printed picture is as inadequate as
the printed words of Steele to express
the boundless hideousness of this
image OF craven fear.
No time is suggested in the picture;
no race is suggested In the costumed
denizens of the land that is ruled by
Ug, and no age tempts poet, musician
or stage manager into anachronism.
L.
Ug is of the soul. He commands his
victims annually like a Minotaur of
Crete.
BY singular chance the kings son
IS self elected for the sacrifice Fear
has him and his fellows gripped.
FEAR vANQUIsHED
But Fear is vanquished by the prince.
who, with his back turned to the lurid
colossus Ug, raises his hands to heaven
and sings:
20 God of Truth where point the red
wood hands.
Thy promise be established now in me
Thy kingdom comes, thy thunders van
quish Fear;
Thy will is done; thy lightnings rend
Fears form;
Thy word unbars the path that leads
to thee;
Thy crystal dawn enwraps the reborn
world.
And lights mems famished eyes to
know thy facet
These lines are pale on paper and but
dinly suggest the reality of the scene
when Bohemias grove was blazing
with red and green lights as Ug. the
god Of fear. crumbled into q mass of