Evening star., 1927-12-04
Plays Alike and Yet
So Different

, old-fashioned love story-two old
| fashioned love stories, in fact-for
the counterplot PAGES along almost
evenly with the main story.
| X * X X
1t is a play from the feminine
viewpoint. 1t does not attempt any
analysis of the male, either in his
defense or his denunciation, but is
discourse on a subject that should
give a woman writer an opportunity
to know exactly what she is writing
about; that is woman"
The two girls eking out an ex-
istence in shabby lodgings are not
chaperoned by Miss Unger through
bright lights, bubbles and the roar
of taxicabs. This chaperonage is one
of the hardest responsibilities that
authors are compelled to take at
present, and it is seldom that they
bring their heroine back to the dear
old home in perfect order.
The two young women, whom the
| author has intrustcd to their own
native sense of propriety, decide that
they would rather have a place in
household service, where they will
be appreciated, than to continue an
ill-paid career in monotonous Office
work. Only a bold dramatist would
attempt such an innovation as a
lesson in economics of sociology.
The character of the self-willed
| girl shows its note of obstinacy in
| demanding absolute assurance that
the man she loves will remain silent
until lie is released from another en-
gagement.
The most sensitive contender for
dramatic purity will admit that moth
ing could be fairer than that. The
manner in which she saves her
sweetheart, though momentarily
estranged, not only from pecuniary
misfortune, but from disgrace, is de-
vised from material most of which
is familiar to students of play max
ing, but which is put together and
made to operate with mechanical
accuracy. It even takes on an air
of brilliant novelty as it utilizes the
distinctive and irresistible personal
ity of Nydia Westman.
1 X y \ X
The counterplot is also a narrative
of affection restrained by a sense of
propriety that remained for many
years undiscovered between a cap
tain of finance and his patient Sec
retary, Miss Timoney. 1t is the in
terview between the naively frank
young girl and the spinster schooled
to repression that makes the most
important scene in the story. The
older woman denounces the younger
for having disclosed some office in
formation to help her lover in a
crisis. What might have been a
highly declamatory episode is held
strictly to charac acter and made more
convincing by this method. The
younger woman discloses to the
older a fact of which Timoney her
self was not aware, her love for her
employer. Both are made to meet
on common ground; that of the love
which is intense and implacable in
self sacrifice, whether it be known
to the world or remains unconfessed
y X
There is more interesting human
analysis in the Timoney role than
in any other character in. the piece.
1t brings out a line of thought
not usually very successfully de-
veloped since the days when the
Shakespeare heroine never told her
love, but sat like Patience on the
monument" The Timoney heroine
goes a step further. She never tells
her love, she never even admits it tc
herself. This creation alone has suf.
hcient originality or novelty in it.
treatment to compensate fully fol
some of the familiar material thai
reflects many stories which deal with
! hard-hearted financiers and people ii
, love.
. Nydia Westman belongs to small
: group of players who have of lat'
, become prominent. They belong tt
the ultra-natural school, and sue
ceed in obliterating an idea that the,
r are acting at all. They liberate f;
: quaintness of personality that woult
y seem an exaggeration in real life
p This is the case with Ruth Gordon
a Whether players of this general de
! scription charm us by emphasizin;
some peculiar mannerisms or ar
, practicing art so clever that it con
= ceals art, cannot be easily deter
mined. And, at any rate. the ques
ton makes no real difference in tn
= enjoyment of the play.
/, * X X X
ii The death of Henry w. Sayag