Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-08-25
MYSTERY DRAMAS,
MODERN AND OLD
The Press Agent of "The Thir-
teenth Chair" Discourses
Sagely Upon Them

=. '"The Thirteenth Chair" Bayard Veil
lars relodrama of mystery, distinctly new
contribution to the art of playwrightng? In
vsv York, where the piece ran continuously
Or n year. the yeas and noes" are about
.vsnly divided. 1t will be interesting to
,o,,ow the local discussion which Is sure TO
.,sue upon the presentation Of the play
=, the Adelphia on Labor Day with the
Nav York company direct from its years
r,n at the Forty-eighth Street Theatre.
TO describe 1t best, one speaks of THE
rb,rteenth Chair" as a mystery play and
,,st IL is a mystery in which the audience
tas a part quite as much as does the police
,nsnector who Is called on to solve it. In
sact at the very beginning Of the second
oct which witnesses the arrival of the
nolice on the scene of the murder, the audi
nnce ia for the time, far better informed
NJ the events that have gone before than Is
the officer who is called on to solve the
nvstery of the murder of Edward Wales.
For the benefit of those who have not
slready seen the play, let 1t be said that
twelve people, all gently bred and pos
sessed Of more than the average amount of
worldly goods, gather together to spend an
.vening at the home of one of their number
As n rather unusual bit Of entertainment
the services of a well-known medium are
enlisted and n spiritualistic seance is to
he given In order that there may be no
suggeston Of trickery, the doors and WIN
Sows are locked and the thirteen sit in a
circle with their hands clasped together
Tben while the lights in the room are
extingushed. one of the thirteen is mur-
dered who committed the crime? Who
killed Edward Wales? The solution to that
question forms the basis for the rest of the
play.
Assuredly this is a mystery play yet at
no time is the audience fooled for as the
po,ce Inspector goes ahead untanglng the
mystery, he takes his audience with him.
The final solution Of the story is no more
Of a surprise to the audience than It is to
the Inspector and the audience has been
fooled no more than has he.
To trace the history of plays which might
be described as mystery plays does not re-
oure one to go back in time for more than
a few years Prior to the coming of Ibsen
there were no plays at all that matched up
to the standard o. THE Thirteenth Chair"
as mystery plays, for the simple reason
that playwrghh invariably resorted to the
soliloquy to explain to the audience what
would have otherwise proven a mystery to
them. Ibsen, by doing away entirely with
the soliloquy. introduced an entirely new
style of play, free of anything that sug-
gested the mysterious.
There followed period of years during
which the drama made no effort to create
situations calculated to mislead the audi
ence. And then came "Arsene Lupin," the
first of the detective plays which might
be called mystery plays but which were
totally unlike The Thirteenth Chair" in
tha; they deliberately sought to mslead the
audience
Following "Arsene Lupin" came Under
Cc'et.' and following that Inside the
Lines. both plays that were mysterious
onl! In so Ear as they did befool their audi
ences by taking an unexpected twist at the
end. In tina. too, they differed from the
present play of Mr.. WELLER because, when
the explanation does come at the conclusion
OF The Thirteenth Chair" you realize that
Il had been quite within your power at all
times to have discovered the correct solu-
tion had you taken the correct course of
y reasoning from the start
IA In any discussion of mystery plays one
must not confuse plays of the character of
: The Thirteenth Chair" with the so-called
mystery plays of the fifteenth century. which
really marked the beginning Of the modern
drama. While those plays, written by
monks, were called mystery plays they were
play FORM While there is some uncertainty
among writer's as to when the first of these
mystery" plays was written, it is likely
that the Coventry mystery plays, founded
on stories from the New Testament and
written in 1416. were the very first begin
nngs Of our modern drama
In connection with the early mystery or
miracle plays, an expert tells of the