Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-03
IFE has changed since the early

ri IFE has changed since the early
- days of the century" writes
Margaret Aver Barnes, and
IL the stage, which is the mir
ror of life, has changed 1t. J"
To illustrate the validity of this dictum.
Mrs. Barnes points to the happenings in
Jenny" play by her and Edward
Sheldon, in which Miss Jane Cowl is
being glamourous at the Booth. There, a
middle-aged lawyer of New York, martyr
to his selfish wife and children, meets
an actress who at first pities, then en-
dures and eventually embraces him.
After a trial week end in the lady's
Canadian camp he deserts his family
and vanishes with her in lovely cloud
of sin.
All of this is unusual, as most stage
things are, but that it is novelty of
1929 or that it indicates a present or
pending sex revolution is doubtful. Good
husbands have been running away from
bad wives for years and years, in life,
If not in the drama. They were doing 1t
when Mr.. Sheldon and Mrs. Barnes
were Sunday school students in the in
FAINT class at ST. ChrystoSom's, Chicago,
not dreaming then that they would be
colaborators in Broadway hit" ques-
tioning the sanctity of the for-better-or-
for-worse clause in the marriage vows.
I have no access to the theater's
archives, but I'll wager a share of Cen
eral Electric against q ticket to Jenny
that Lackaye. Faversham and Arthur
Byron have played q dozen such heroes
q score of times.
Still, parallels of the Jenny" kind are
helpful In advocating the rule that a
man should make the best of bad bar
gain. The sweet old corporation lawyer
in the play (Sir Guy Standing) is so
innocent, chaSte, honorable and self
sacriflcial that you are refreshed when
he walks out on his contract, defiantly
hand-in-hand with Miss Cowl as his
liberator: No longer will he have to
sweat his brow to feed his atrocious
wife's giggoloes, and he has bought the
last motor boat for his son, speedy
sophomore at Yale. Never again will he
be bothered by seeing his young daugh-
ter, aged Is, come home at 8 am, as
she does somewhere In Jenny" He
gives them all the air, and at the age of
SO is reborn, q free American sweet
heart.
T IKE most dramatists, Mr.. Sheldon
- and Mrs. Barnes believe that lives
end with the falling of the final cur
tains. They bury their characters alive
at IL o'clock or thereabouts, and begin
at once to breed new ones for another
Standing is Sedate barrister with
passion for virtue, duty and the collec-
ton Of postage stamps. He Is handsome
in an autumnal way, but bashful and
inexperienced. 1.-The first actress finds 1t
difficult to overcome his elderly preju-
dices, but through The exertion of all
her magnetism and personality she con-
trives to overcome him and his inhibi-
tions.
But what, one asks the authors, hap
pens to this nice old fellow after he has
spread his wings, an aged barn-swallow
undertaking q youthful bluebird's
flight? He goes away with the philan-
thropic theater woman, who is supposed
to understand him, and they are bliss
fully bravado as they bid his wicked
family BECOME Yet can imagine them
fortnight later little fed up with one
another and wondering II the big things
of life are worth the while. In fifth
act Jenny probably would be regretful
that she had given up her career with
BeIasco or Herman Shumlin, and her