The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1928-11-01
H0w It Feels to Meet Death in|
The Electric Chair -Eueru Niqht|
Ruth Snyder's Stage Parallel
Says Death e Equilib.
RUM

New York, Nov. LII the spirit
Of the unhappy murderess, Ruth
Snyder, could be summoned back
from beyond the electric chair it
might tell story similar to that of
zita Johann, 24-year-old Hungarian
actress.
! Miss Johann is the star of mach
inal," New York play based on the
Snyder. Gray case. Every night she
is condemned to death and "1oes
! put" with scream on her lips.
It Is strange role: the strangest
OF the Broadway season, perhaps,
and inescapably the most trying.
But every night> Miss Johann ac-
cepts the intensity of it with all the
enthusiasm Of an ambitious young
girl delighted over her first real
stroke Of fortune. It is the first
starring part she ever won, you see.
Has Sensations of Death
So far, At least, her off-stage life
has :,a been wi wholly lily free ct mo morbid id. re-
really die, every night" she told me.
But my imagined death comes to
me as a relief from tension. find
q recent scientific definition very
true and beautiful-'Death is equi-
librium.'"
miss Johann is just "A Young
Woman" in the play. For this
young woman life always was
trap, from which she vainly sought
escape. Her first attempt, after
years Of drudgery to support her.
self and her nagging old mother, is
a marriage with her employer. He
is fat, wealthy and middle-aged. The
marriage closed the trap all the
tighter.
The young woman goes cropping
for pleasure. She meets a young
man, and goes with him to his rooms.
She thinks q beautiful and sacred
romance has come to her.
Months afterward, with her lover
away in Mexico, her husband is
murdered in his sleep. The young
woman, arrested and tried, testifies
she awakened to see "some dark
men, bending over her husband; that
they killed him with bottle filled
with stones. The prosecutor breaks
through her perjury and she con-
fesses.
Execution in Darkness
The young woman is in a death
cell in the next scene. A pitifully
meager figure, clothed in black, she
PAGES back and forth and puts
frenzied questions to q priest. Her
mother comes to say goodbye, and
then she is led black there"
For the execution scene, the stage
is completely dark. The audience
hears footsteps, and is acquainted
with the action by the whispered
comments Of newspaper reporters.
There is a woman's sudden cry.
Then slowly the darkness lifts. A
vague, rosy light creeps across the |
stage and up the folds of the cur
tains. The young woman has es-
callsd at last.
Anything so real and intense can
not be mere acting" said Miss Jo-
ham. II never actually memorized |
my lines; they seemed to come to
me by instinct. ! am not Zita Jo-
ham in the play. I am that young
woman-any life is a reaching out,
q fluttering against bars. Every
thing turns out to be an obstruction,
q wall.
AT the end l belong to spiritual
rather than physical existence. The
young woman holds no resentment
toward the Judge who condemned
her. People have become dwarfed
to marionettes. They are figures in
q dream. Everything is easier after
the confession.
Terror.Stricken First
"0nly at the final moment, in the
first performances. did there come
to me sensation of purely animal
terror. ! felt the shock Of the cleo
trio current. Somebody I cried
-s6omebo-.' And then -. well,
equilibrium"
Miss Johann is careful, off-stage,
to keep her nerve as fit as those of
an athlete. She does not smoke. As
the play goes on, she probably will
be forced to seek outside distrac-
tions, she said. She will begin play
ing the violin again, and dancing.
But right now she is living with her
role day and night"
Miss Johann was born in Hungary.
Her father was hussar in the Hun
garian army. Her parents brought
her to America when she was seven,
and she marveled at Broadway's
nightly glow. Then came high
school, dramatic school, a few minor
parts here and there, and now
The electric chair every night!