New-York tribune., 1919-02-02


motor car in the same fix.
melodrama has got to be smooth
running. and to have we'll OILED, dove
.a,led, ll-bearing points if it wants
10 be good; the logical perfection of
its action is about the only excuse it
has for existence. A play that is built
en character can afford to have all
kinds OF lapses in the mechanism of
lis action, because character is the
basis of real life. and real life is full
Of inconsistencies and inexplicable
twists OF action.
But melodrama hasn't anything to
do with character and hasn't anything
N do with real life. 1t deals with
types-types of people and types of
action; and the only job it has while
it's happening is to make you believe
it is possible for it to happen. When
YOU see real character on the stage
YOU don't have to be convinced. He
has logic all his own that goes on
functioning all the twenty-four hours
Of his stage existence, and even after
YOU have quit the theatre. When you
see a melodrama you know underneath
that it isn't real, and you watch from
the first to the last curtain to see II
YOU can catch the author making
mistake. Watching for melodrnmatlsts
tc trip up on the consistency of their
plots is, next to poker, the best under
cover sport American civilization has
produced
"Three Faces East" is melodrama
with all the latest gear shifts, car
buretors, oil cups. piston rods and
cylinders. 1t functions noiselessly
from the moment it takes the spark,
goes into high without a murmur,
spins down the stretch of its several
acts without wasted motion and be-
trays only temporary weakness when
it is forced to slow down q little for
the garage door
"The Woman in Room 49, another
meIodrama, at the Booth Theatre,
shows several fine bursts of speed, but
it fails to finish the run by ignoring
one Of the most simple and elementary
rules of the melodramatic theatre.
There was q time, net SO long ago,
when the first thing you remembered
when you wrote play was that the
audience had to know what was going
on, even if the people on the stage
didn't. That rules still holds good if
you mean to write that kind of play.
If you are attempting to disclose the
mental action of half dozen people
when they are confronted by several
varied and surprising circumstances,
the suspense for the audience depends
not primarily on what happens but on
how the actors are going to take what
happens. Here it is character that
counts, and you can't afford to let your
audience lose sight of the characters
by being all wound up and confused
III losing sight of the action. When
Hamlet has the players appear before
hte King, everybody knows it's trick
Eamlet's going to play on the King to
see if it will make him confess any
Of his misdeeds. Audiences watch
Hamlet and the King to see what will
happen. If they weren't let In on it.
they'd be lost.
But the modern melodramatist has
given shrewd eye to this business.
Here he is dealing with people that
are only the shadows of people. What
their characters are like hasn't any
more to do with the play than the
price Of lima beans. In this Gaze
suspense lies entirely in action, and
how better heighten it than by leaving
'ne audience entirely in the dark about
1t and clearing it all up with a fine
sweep only at the end. The parts that
are played, being mere types and
shadows Of people, can be treated in
sas same way as the action. Leave
'as audience in the dark as to the
nae relationships Of the people in
'oived and you get five times as much
Suspense and excitement as you might
get otherwise.
Three Faces East" which might be
called Three Speeds East" does that
very thing. You start out with a mixed
assortment of German and English