New-York tribune., 1919-02-23


society in the first act. And do YOU
now observe the moonlt grace and
fantasy with which society is fattered
in the first reel? Then the transi-
tion from high life to prairie saloons
and shooters up-how much less it is
like falling down the chimney! Here
ls an emotional, stirring, picturesque
story which, merely to ges 1t on in
the fixed conditions of the stage, had
to be poked and jolted and bumped
together, arriving at last, despite points
OF stunning construction, in con
glomerate mess. In Beulah Dixs seen
arlo, with the exception of the surely
unnecessary African scene, the action
and the story follow each other like
a river and its bank, the 1uIl tide
knowing neither impediment nor haste
but moving with the very flow of the
tales wistful sentiment. "And yet"--
And yet how was it possible that,
save for admiration, it left us un-
moved? We who used to vince from
the pain of it, though always passing
our plate for more! We who when the
snlvelllng aunt begins to demand the
sacrifice that exiles jim Wynnegate in
dlshonor from England, used to be held
IN our seats only by the watchfulness
OF Providence for our escorts, prevent
ing us from crying over the footlights,
MY poor boy, pay no attention to such
an old devil!" Having known "The
Squawman" thus long, we don't hesi-
tate to ask its own feelings: "How
goes it, then, in the new life? Are YOU
wholly satisfied? Or do you yourself
feel anything missing?
IF so, is it the terrible dignity of
Theodore Roberts as the Indian father.
unaccountably cast now for another
part? Or the soft sweetness of the
pretty little valentine Naturich. now
displaced by the extraordinarily intel
llgent and faithful Naturich of Ann
Little-stold and SNUG dumb animal
all tragic realism in a play of such
delicately Drowned sentiment that the
presence of q real Indian woman is al
most enough to blacken it to a crisp ."
For ourselves at any rate something
mas evaporated; something intense, and
selling which made the stage VERSIONS
cruoltles OF no account; some pang
OF desperate endeavor and the doom of
unmerciful disaster, following fast. and
following faster, when so good a fell
low finds in all his struggles the hand
OF GOD against him. Never was syn1
pathy so unsparingly demanded for
any hero since Job as for the hero of
The Squawman." Mr. Dexter. sitting
before the fire in that soft white shirt
which droops about him in such beauty
of sculpturesQue folds as to suggest
1ar more sympathetic laundress than
the East affords, abandons himself to
such a degree of melancholy that we begin
to fear he will actually melt away alto
gether into the heavenly dark gold of
the Aircraft Photography and disan-
pear just as Mr. Faversham, backed uD
by the loss of his money, was wont to
let loose a saturate solution of woe in
which he and his audiences used prac-
tlcally to drown together. And to think
'hat ourselves should now be left, in
terested but safe, on dry land!
Is 1t perhaps possible to put the
blame on Mr.. Dexter? We should
dearly like to, out of spite for the wav
he keeps US perpetually on the watch
lest ne should charm us altogether
from our judicial ability to pick on
him. But the thing cannot be done:
his performance is too fine for us-it
can actually look the landscape in the
eye, which is almost too much to saw
Tor any performance
with what dreadful suggestion are
we then left face to face? Can it be
that the change lies not in "The Souaw-
man" but in ourselves? Having watched
1t fade from the original production
through revival after revival till We
supposed that we had helped close its
eyes in stock, can we admit that thir-
teen IS perhaps so unlucky a number
Of years as to have smeared the
window pane of enchantment and
dulled emotions edge? Perish the
treacherous, creeping hint that there
even may be slight lessening in our
general susceptibility to the predica-
ments Of heroicaly sad gentlemen.
having been puzzled to find so little
resemblance between their elegant
gloom and the rather ll-manncred ill.,
tempered, and even somewhat unsi ght-
~ distress that it has been our humble
ioe TO observe in afflicted males-so
'hat even in the freight the most
sculpturesque white shirts call down
cur tears upon them in less free and
easy deluge than they used to do Of
yore! Was it our appeal Just now to
the play Of "The Squawman" as to
"hat had happened to it which has
caused it to evoke a well-worn dittv.
10 make US ask it, not for itself but
u.s. another question: Darling, are we
growing old ?"