New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-11-17
By HAYWOOD BROUN.


We are minded to ask Emanuel Reicher,
the founder of the American Peoples
Theatre. Certainly, when the Young
Vine Blooms" will never appeal to
that terrified little man behind the big
spectacles who is fleeing from Uncle
Trusty. The people Of Mr.. Reicher are
not kin to Mr.. Hearst's friend, the
Common People.
Who are they them The folk who
are listening to Sousa's band in the
Hippodrome, laughing with Abe Pot
ash, weeping with Judge Priest or sit
ting tense as Geraldine Farrar dies
divinely in the last reel are not the
people for Mr.. Reicher They won't
like when the Young Vine Blooms"
Why should they? The play of Bjorn-
stjerne Bjornson (who for the sake of
convenience We shall refer to hereafter
simply as b. b. would paifie and bore
them.
Is. b. was seventy-seyen years old
when the play was written. II was an
afterthought. He was no more than a
clnder of his radical self when i'm the
last of his dramas he turned against
his former propaganda, even as Ibsen
rebuked his own followers in THE
Wild Duck" The play of the backslider
almost invariably lacks the strength Of
the man who is moving forward, but
lbsen was a great carpenter, and al
though "The Wild Duck" is one of the
least interesting of his plays in its
philosophy, it is also one of the most
absorbing in its technical excellence.
b. b., on the contrary, was never a
great craftsman, and when the Young
Vine Blooms" is more spineless in
structure than it is in thought. Comedy,
melodrama and farce are jumbled. That
is pity, for of all the elements of a
play structure is by all odds the most
easily translated. The we'll made play
is well made, whether il be in English,
German, French or Norwegian. II is
limited only by boundaries of a COM
mon theatrical convention. The play
which has merely literary appeal can
not go so far.
Aryid Paulson has made what
sounded like an excellent translation.
At any rate, as far as We could Judge
by hearing the play once, when the
Young Vine Blooms" has certain lit
erary merit. 1t is, however, by no
means great enough to atone for its
dramatic incoherence. Il is verbose
More than that, it is garrulous. The
play rambes even as a man of seventy
seven might be expected TO ramble.
We are not forgetting the fact that
the Norwegian giant in his old age
used to take his morning bath stand
ing under an icy mountain waterfall"
Possibly, when the Young Vine
Blooms" was written in drouthy
season. At any rate. it was written
when B. B. had come to doubt his own
preaching.
All his life he had fought for the
freedom and the responsibility of
woman, and his object having been
gained TO a large extent he suffered
the natural revulsion of feeling which
comes 10 every man who has attained
his object. In "When the Young Vine
Blooms" he breaches the rights of man
and the duties of woman. 1t is dram
atization of the "obey" in the mar
riage service, and the Apostle Paul is
the collaboration.
We have no intention of making
dogmatic statement that the play is
about this or that. Frankly we can only
guess. Possibly it is about eugenics,
or child labor. or farm life in Norway.
God knows.
The incoherence of the play did not
prevent lively realization of the fact
that Emanuel Reicher is an excellent
comedian, that Ernita Lascelles was
doing good work as Alberta Avik and
that Hedwig Reicher is still numbered
among the few actresses of the Ameri-
can stage who are vocally effective.
IL is unfortunate that Mr.. Reicher
has chosen "When the Young Vine
Blooms as the first play for the sea-
son of the American stage and the
American Peoples Theatre. Such a
blunder will make Mr.. Reicher's future
work more difficult, and also handicap
others who may come along with the
best intentions in the world of foster
ing worthy drama. We would bring to
Mr.. Reicher's attention sentence
from the introduction OF his magazine
1.-THE Modern tage"-"Hendrik Ibsen
once uttered a clever remark, in saying
that a play was finished only after the
public had given its cooperation"
There is no adequate reason why the
public should give its cooperation to
when the Young Vine Blooms