New-York tribune., 1919-02-12
Drama
"lhe Net" Brings Mystery to
forty-eighth Street
theatre
BY HeyWood Rro,,n

Nature Is pretty good to the drama
tlsts Not that they ever did nncb
'or her' either. Take amnesia, for in
stance. 1t seems to be an alment sne-
c'"iiy created for writer's of melo-
u'a'na. Maravene Thompson has availed
isiscll o. two good gifts of nature in
Inc Net" which combines murder
ana amnesia In equal proportions. A
ra'her interesting melodrama results.
ai'hough 1T taxes credulity upon occa-
sion
The plot is built about the fact that
neglected wife prefers to have an
innocent man suspected of crime
ra'her than let her scoundrel husband
be punished. The play expressly stipu-
iates that the wife has little or no love
Tor her husband, but tries to prove that
her attitude is justified by her desire
TO shield her child's name from shame.
me child in question is a youngster
ol thr9e or four, and it is our impress
SION mat children of that age care
very lIttIe whether either parent is
hanged, let alone a male one. We
nave also been told that neglected
wives nave an indifference as to the
tate OF husbands which is little short
OF appalling
Thus we found it difficult to accent
the action Of the wife in "The Net"
as logical. She is present when her
husband murders her best friend in
mean anger over money. Before the
ponce arrive stranger staggers in
from the street, incoherent from a re-
nj
husband places few discriminating
C0cuments III the pockets of the mud
died man and escapes. The murdered
man has spoken the name of the Grim
maj with his last dying gasp. but the
ponce take the confused stranger to
be the criminal. The wife allows the
mistake to continue and finds herself
m an embarrassing position when the
victim of amnesia RECEIVERS his senses
but not his memory. He falls in love
with the woman because of, or in
spite of, the fact that he thinks she
rs MS wife, and eventually she falls
IN love with him. He is even ready to
forgive her when the mystery is solved
by his sudden recovery Of memory.
fortunately, the villanous husband IS
shot IN attempting to escape from the
ponce and happy ending is promised,
although slightly deferred out of re-
spect to the memory of the dead muir
derer.
The plot sounds somewhat cruder in
this outline than in its actual per
1ormancc on the stage, for the various
complications are handled with a good
deal of dramatic skill and the plav
undoubtedly does carry the spectator
along, by stimulating his interest in
Just how it will all come out. We
found the story more interesting while
when they were in the process of
breaklng down. 1t did not seem to US
That the strangers recovery of his
memory was dramatically devised Nor
did the long love scene between the
deluded man and his supposed wife in
terest us much. We doubt if the most
stubborn victims of amnesia use such
phrases as "come to my arms" We
are still more skeptical when they re-
peat them.
A notable cast has been assembled
for "The Net" and the performance is
on the whole a good one. Kathlena
MacDonnell played we'll, particularly
IN number of scenes which demanded d
a a hlgh degree of repression. Some
times we found her Just trife TOO
hard and unsympathetic, but here
the player. Byron Beasley, as the
scoundrelly husband. seemed to us the
most successful member Of the cast
Charles Millward, as the amncsia vic
tim, was a trife too artificial for our
taste. Charles Dalton made an au-
thoritative figure of the doctor, and
Arthur Eldred did a neat piece of
cockney comedy as the hospital attend
ant. Graham Lucas, the child of the
performance, was an exceptionally at
tractive stage youngster, and we hone
that he will stay that way in spite
Of all the applause he won on the first
night.