The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-10-10
ADJUSTMENTS
Today

Ml and Mrs. Wagner. a very rich young couple. lived in New York The ioan was Of ordinary plodding variety. Jn monetary sense. he had made good The wife was an extravagant, very foolish, frivolous young woman.
 In the course of time there came a business depression The man was bard pressed But he lacked the moral courage to tell the wife. Shes unblessed with brain, could not perceive. and surrounded by her fashionable friends. laughed the hours away
 Aiid the crash came. The husband told the story. The wife, distressed. hnni-iated in that her friends must h,o~, agreed in fearful spirit. to pant with her home and her Jewels and her rich companions. MT. and Mrs. Wag- nef went to live in flat The woman. iebelled against the pinch of poverty. aud her heart cried out against her iaee The beginning of the return of prosperity gave her no cheer She capitalized her face. She sold herself TOT money. Her husband kills her
 fie moral which the man who wrots the play and the man who presented II would teach is that there are some ss.ih2s which woman should consider oi greater value than a dress and q hat, for instance, honor one miebt S3iher If he desired an admonition to hNe correctly and within the radius. of the family's income So blunt1,, hoMcNer, was the moral thrust below opes nose that he began to speculate on whether or not Che object of the pfdy was the teaching of the lesson m f2ct, hideous story is dressed in Handsome garb. a story which desnite Ire animation of the play, is not q stor@ of New York life" or the lige of any other American city. If is tbs story rather of an incident, and an in cieeht Which is unclean. Rather than Tor the purpose of presenting a nfc turc in order that good out of filtb na2ht be drawn, was it not the pur Dose of the man writing and produc Ing the play to fill theatres by his subtle appeal to the sensational in the brain and heart of man and woman to that in the soul of every individual Wnlch Is not considered or recalled with pleasure?
 Tlie play last night at the Jefferson did not teach lesson Those who sat Tor several hours beneath the foot li@hts pitied the woman in that she was married to a man who was SD lacking in moral courage that he per- nlitted her to make a fool of him.
 
 he could not foresee the end of his own neglect The audience retired de- pressed. The proverbial bad taste in the mouth" was the general complaint No one went into the night with d light heart or laugh No one recalled a thought of Today" without a shud- der, if not of disgust certainly of re- gret.
 As a vivid drama, To-day" is far from failure. For three acts 1t en- tertains. The father and mother of Mf Wagner, a fine old-fashioned Ger man couple. were introduced and their participation made the play brighter and more natural than it otherwise would have been A wicked woman who boasted that she pulled the wool over the eyes" of her husband and got what she wanted to wear because she knew the sources from which those things came easily. appeared. She was e'itirely natural, and, on more than one occasion, and for more than one req sor. saved To-day" The persons in whose hands the play was entrusted were in the main capable. Helen Me Kellar, the weak little wife, was unus- ua;ly good throughout, and in the eli max, was excellent Charles N. Greene and Emma Wagner, who played the parts of the father and mother of the htssband, were clever and deserve spe- cal mention May Herbert, who es- saved the role of the woman of the world Mrs. Garland. was unusually fine Amelia Mayborn. the landlady of the resort in which the woman was captured in her plight and by her outraged husband. choked to death did her part we'll She was an admirable landlady. No fault could be found with the maid, the policemen or the 'hutler George McQuarrie, who played the heavy part. that of sthe husband who worked himself to death in that his wife might have the finery her near, desired. and who. on learning tn, dupiicity of the woman, killed her. vas for the first three acts. very accept able. In the climax, however, the erene in the ''house. he was too melo~ dramatic. and thus failed to measure