Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-03-17

There is a phase of enjoyment
available in such production as
that of Madame X" which does
not depend on a sense of novelty,
to which the appeal now becomes
as strong as at first; for the play
has slept so long in the files CT
the agents and brokers that it's
awakening finds an entirely new
public. After 90 long a slumber,
practical people of the theater
feared it might creak a little in
the joints like rip Van Wrinkle"
returning to his native haunts to
find all changed in appearance,
taste and custom.
This does not happen with an
old but genuinely good play, as
producers of So-called revivals
freely assert. A revival" is usually
a misnomer because, though fire.
quently absent from view for
considerable length of time, the
play has never really lost con-
seriousness.
When Madame X was first
placed on view in this country in
conquered by it's emotional in
tenSity and was esteemed not very
highly as a consistent and polish
ed work in dramatic literature.
It was asserted that without
Dorothy Donnelly as the mother
and William Elliott as the son
who becomes her attorney after
she has fallen into the dregs
of life the play would have gone
along as one of the many COM
paratively short-lived thrillers so
abundant in the annals of melo-
drama.
Mother and son again appear
as convincing now, imperSonated
by Mary Newton and Wilfred
Lytell. The designation "melo-
drama" should not imply neceS-
sarily a form of entertainment
appealing to a less discriminating
sense of refinement than the
avowedly poetic drama or phil
osophical analysis in the guise OF
satire. There are moments of
Sublimity in what conventional
phrase broadly Classics as melo-
drama, and to attain them con-
vincingly the dramatiSt must
show the most polished skill in
putting together this plot mech
anisn so that it will run with
absolute smoothness. There must
be no dead centers in the action
to be overcome by main strength
and dependence on the indif-
ference of an audience that de-
sires only results, regardless of
methods. Many a play has been
forced along the course of MARIA
tive by sheer effrontery in de-
manding a surrender of a sense
of reasonable discernment. The
author becomes more like the
magician who DULLES his Specta-
tors into submission and performs
his tricks gracefully so that there
is no serious desire to undeceive
those who find tn e m i've s
amused.
A play brilliantly apart from
the ordinary, Madame X pre-
sents even a greater pleasure on
second viewing than on the first.
It's climaxes are now well known,
the suspense is punctuated by no
actual surprises, and the full pat
tern of the wonderful fabric is
clearly plain to recollection. In
stead of the enjoyment of sue
cession of episodes which bring
many a shudder and many tear.
there comes the greater luxury Of
a sincere admiration The keen
analysis of motives in the unfold
ing of a beautiful love story in
which destiny takes it's own tragic
course without leaving the char
acters to become entangled in the
web of fate by sheer coincidence
shows the skill of a master crafts
man.
Such events as Madame X
discloSes may have occurred but
seldom in the history of the
French underworld. The drama
fist undertakes only to show how
easily they might occur, and to