The Washington herald., 1913-03-25
NEW NATIONAL.
"The High Rond.'


pilgrimage in five parts. which was pre-
| sented at the National last evening be-
| fore large and genuinely pleased audi
ence, Edward Sheldon. the author of the
play. who is also the author Of Saliva
ton Nelr' and THE Niger" exhibits a
notable ingenuity in the invention and
development OF striking stage situations,
and a growing mastery OF compact, forci-
| Bile. and dramatic dialogue. The play
has none of the inevitability of true
| drama-every incident being a II seems.
| the product OF calculated artifice-but It
contains much common and good sense
and sound morality. as well as a good bit
| of sentimental and sensational extrava-
gance, and carries a strong theatrical ap-
| peal 1t would almost seem as II the
play had been especially written to keep
! the heroine-a feminine paragon un-
matched for charm and beauty-inces-
sanity in the llmeliRht.
Mrs. Fiske has one supreme moment
in the play. 1t comes in the fourth
part. She has made and lost a fight
that was to have shielded her politically
| ambitious and successful husband from
the consequences OF her own past mis-
deeds, now threatened with a general
publication.
The man who has been her accuser
has left her. convicted. smiling synically
as he departs. Other men. her husbands S
advisers. the managers OF his campaign
for the Presidency, have seen defeat
crushing forward toward the victory
they had felt was won. and have gone
their ways broken in spirit and bowed
OF head.
The husband she has idealized is weak
ened and hopeless in the face OF the
political ruin he and his party through
him are TO meet Yet she. with the
glory of a crusaders faith shining from
her eyes. the thrill OF the one great VIC
tory in her voice, dares to stand for
ward and Justify the life she has led
by the work she has done and the woman
she has become.
1t Is one OF those dramatic moments
TO which few other. IL indeed any wom-
an OF our stage can do as full justice
as she. for to none of them Is the grasp
OF the soul OF character so natural
or so simple a task.
Unfortunately. this scene is not fol.
lowed by others which keep I'D the
intense feeling aroused by II. II has
the effect, despite its spirituaIIzed ap-
peal. of arousing an emotional promise
the later scenes do not fulfill. For in
the NTH and concluding part OF ths
play, which follows Immediately, the
unreGenCIate enemy of the lady is
brought costly and rather arbitrarily
To book py her threat to publish a
statement addressed ito the lnen ard
women Of the country" denying her
enemy's true charges against her
which course seems wholly incon-
sistent with the character as defender
of the truth.
By her sincerity and directness Mrs
Fiske hid what seemed mawkish and
studious in the play, and she touched
with nobility and delicacy what was real
and spontaneous in ii. There was, for
example, Mary's bit OF description of the
parade of some half-starved laundry
workers. They carried she says, "a
banner that bore the words, Sisters, We
Need You stitched on in red letters-I
and they were SO tired and SO brave"
The yearning in the eyes of the actress
as she articulated these words, the fut-
ter of the hands that would minister and
that CROPPED for the way to service and
the thrilling vail of the tone-these were
fine. They searched out
the heart and they held the audience to
pious attention.
There is curious, haunting, youthful
charm to her voice during the first act,
and the fact that it is played in the mists
OF early evening helps to conceal the fur
ther fact that she is. in truth, no longer
seventeen. Only In the second act she is
at a marked disadvantage, and here as
usual tIe soul OF ner performance saves
the situation. Mrs. Fiske is capably. even
assisted by Frederick Perry
as the governor, whom he marries; Ar
thur Byron, as the enemy whom she de-
feats. and Herbert Delmore, as the un-
happy lover whom she deserts
Prosaically The High Road" is the
story Of girl who leaves the sordid
life OF an upstate farm to follow an
IDEAL she finds embodied in the poetic
fancies of a travelling artist. For three
Years they live together. Then she re-
volts, scorns his offer of marriage leaves
MIN. and goes to work in a shirt-waist
factory. She gains fame as an emanci- |
pator Of the women who work, and |
twenty years later meets, loves, ana
the Governor of the State
When he is a candidate for the Presi- |
oency their strongest political enemies. a |
representative Of big business" threat
ems the exposure Of the wife's past and |
she defeats him by not only admitting IL, |
but by agreeing to print her own state
nent OF it alongside his cowardly attack
and expose. and leave 1t to the people |
to Judge between them. 1t is, however.
q new kind Of industrial bigot. we are
afraid. that scares so easily.
The play is handsomely mounted and
most completely acted, as NAV be ex-
pected Of a Fiske production. The audi
ence last night was encouragingly en-
thusiastic.