The evening world., 1921-02-26
TURNING ON
/ 6 THE SPOTLIGHT
LOUeIOTn HerOineS
BeIDGil Their Fate
i1 TeGT-StGined Plays
By CHARLES DARNTON.

IN was pretty sure Of getting a
husband. Nowadays she gets
left Just before the fall of the final
curtain she Is hopeful. not TO say ex-
peotant, only to have the man walk
fout on her.
AGAtrimony is no longer assured on
's4fe stage, and except for the movies,
n3eaotonOusly true to the endearing
clinoh. ''the happy ending seems we'll
on its way to the storehouse. The
explanation of this change is not to
be found in high rentals or low NOR
all, but in the mood Of authors who
do not hesitate to leave lovelorn
heroines bewailing their fate in tear
stained plays.
This risk was taken a number of
years ago by Eugene Walter with
Tho Easiest Way" but like the
English author of Iris" he could
send his audience home with the vir-
stu9us feeling that the woman in the
case got what she deserved. 'Rats!"
as my neighbors in the gallery used
to cry. Drama is drama, whether the
people in 1t are good or bad. In fact
I've a sneaking notion that you have
= sneaking notion that the bad"
people in a play are usually more in
teresting than the good" ones. How
ever, we will leave tlat question to
the next President of the United
states, for all the good Presidents I've
sedns quoted on plays were terribly
bad dramatic critics. These self
appointed ministers of art should
stick to vaudeville.
II, like performing acrobats, we
STRETCHED a net to save ourselves from
disaster, we might catch a new idea
or two. Tumbling into this net, first
Ol all, would be Eugene O'Neill "a re-
ALTA in "Diffren Just as Karen
NEichaelis is a feminist in "The Dan
Eeppus Age" made over into The
White Villa by Edith Ellis, who calls
It "a Woman's comedy" when 1t is
really a Woman's tragedy tragedy
brought on mostly by idleness. The
thing that keeps us going is work.
We have q great deal in common with
the clock. and the joke of it is that
We all hope to strike twelve.
II happened to be the alarm clock
Of melodrama that rang this week at
the Lexington Theatre, with Willard
Mack setting the time for an unhappy
ending Of melodrama. At the last
moment he left a perfectly good girl
crying her eyes out and proclaiming
her undying love. Girls, slim or
nluinp. may be built that way-but
MAYS will be plays. A melodramatic
bero NAV be able to carry everything
or everybody before him and make a
StSrand e1it"-but so far as Is known
this is the first time that willard
Mack refused to marry anybody. There
is nothing like making history. In
tent upon cracking safes in his grand
career as a crook, Mr.. Mack says to
the poor girl who does her best to
make him feel at home:
you're at that age where the eye
glasses you have worn since you were
a baby (hguratively speaking, OF
oourseO have clouded and distorted
thes1iEht that will come a little later,
and ne can't wait for that" Then
aftsr more talk OF the same sort he
leaves her weeping for the husband he
miEht have been. This may be melo-
drama with an ideal OF a vengeance
There Ia probably nothing so reIent-
less. bitir.g and cruel as life in small
town when you feel that you never
will be able TO get away from 1t. I'm
consciously, perhaps, Eugene O'Neill
has nut the narrowness and vicious
ness OF neighboring households into
,isDiff'rent." Here Is found the heroine
FysSo knows nothing beyond the fence
around her house. When she hears
that the sailor she Is waiting to
marry hasn't conducted himself prop
erly with a maiden OF one OF the
South Sea islands, she breaks her
engaRement to marry him. But as
abe grows to be fifty and puts on
paint and powder, she Is so far from
being pure-mind~d that she urges a
loafer in army uniform to tell her
about his experiences with girls in
France. Fortunately, we are spared
the details of his easy adventures, and
finally she gets his measure when he
tells her that instead OF marrying her,
as ne had thought OF doing for the
little money she had, he might make
a better bargain with his uncle, who
had waited thirty years for her. He
also politely informs her that she Is
old enough TO be his mother.
''Say, honest, Emmer, you didn't
believe was really stuck on you, did
your he asks the absurd, pitiful
creature. This is realism with
vengeance. But Eugene ONeill has
the rare gift OF being real without
pity, and so this woman Is left to
herself.
Itis quite another sort Of heroine
ai'Auhabits "The White villa" She
simply tires OF her prosaic husband,
goes To an island after she divorces
him, and then finds herself in want
Of n man. But the young architect
who has turned her fancy gives her
uINrDV DIT