New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1921-08-24
The New Play
BY Percy Hammond

THE CAST

Cooper
Weinstein. ............ james r. Waters
Jake. ....... Chester Herman
Some short and complex annals Of
the lowly we're set forth last evening in
"The Detour,' a corroding transcript
by Owen Davis of the dreams and des-
tiny Of simple farm folk on the At
lantic littoral. SO faithful was it in
its picture, SO pungent in its observa-
ton and so real and eloquent was it in
its characters and story that one re-
grets ones sneers at MIR. Davis's pre-
vious tawdry ineptitudes, and almost
dotfs his hat in apology, No matter
how bad Mr.. Davis has been hereto
fore, his performance last night at the
Aston condones his past and suggests
q smiling and a hopeful future. 1t is
not possible. trust. and it is ungra-
cious to fear that, expecting so little,
we were stampedcd by so much, and
that we were moved by our discovery
to the dubious enthusiasm of the
unwary.
Besides Mr.. Davis's achievement the
evening was noteworthy for admirable
approximations by Miss Ellie Shannon
and by Augustin Duncan, in the prin-
cipal roles, and by the others who
composed the expert cast. Miss Shan
i'Oi' was dSoI SHSu W VIC DdII Oh II
yearning farm-wife in whose soul
there burned divine and not i'm
patient discomfort. She had been
drudge for many years, tortured and
kept alive by her visions and by her
be1ic1 that sh- would come into her
own through her daughter, who had a
knack for painting.
Life, she knew, ought to be brighter
than she had been able to make her
pots ana pans and she hungered for
what are known as the amenities She
mad rather have dream than a mil
lion, she said; and she grew tired
listening to the talk of the unimagina-
tive. people about her. who never said
a mite mors nor mite less than they
meant. She was so fine in her aspira-
tlons that you wondered why Mr.
Davis made her so faulty in her tastes,
preferring, as she did. the red plush
furniture Of her gaudy parlor to her
priceless ancestral bedsteads. These
she sold for song in order to send
her daughter to New York City, here
women learning to express themselves,
In conflict with her was Mr.. Dun
can, representing hard. selfish, heavy
and stubborn husbandman, a land
greedy oaf, whose only thought was o{
additional acres. When the time came
for the daughter to depart, he le-
belled, and demanded that size gave
him the money which she had boarded
tor the purposes of art, that he might
buy another truck farm The tragedy
which brooded over the proceedings
came to approximate fulhlment when
1T was learned by the testimony of /.
visiting New York painter Of land
scapes that the daughters decls upon
her canvasses were only daubs. ana
that her proposed invasion of arts
centre would be but fools errand.
The play gets its name from the fact
that the sutton Of the painting ingenue
was an ambitious mechanic, who aban-
doned the stubborn glebe to start q
garage, only to find that his business
was ruined by the closing of a thor
oNgh1arc and the consequent admoni-
zion "betour.' At the end and on the
nm Of her departure for New York,
the young woman, after acid advice
from the New Tori, artist, gives UP her
none too sturdy longings and bestows
her savings upon her lover, that he
may escape bankruptcy and marry her.
She thus begins anew her mothers
sordld life among the skillets and the
burrows, and "The Dctonr" becomes for
her only cul-de-sac. The plays direc-
tlon by Mr.. Duncan is honest, almost 70
the point Of flawicssness, and its act
ing is in every item reticent and bcliev-
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