| Show I JULIE JUU BERNES PLAY MAY Y S Win wi I I BY FRANKLIN fYLES S A T THAT moment no TIO one in the the theatre theatre theatre AT atre could be sure whether Julie Julle Herne Home was acting or was not Julie lulle and her sister Chrystal C hrS tal bad nad re responded to many man recalls during a play which Julie JuIle had Irad written and now new the audience wished shed her to say something on tm her own account Julie is but twenty twenty ty tP and amI a hundred years and pounds which Is young oung and light enough to render fonder girlish modesty a probable sight And she in la blonde besides which gave to her exhibition of or fright an appealing aspect of pale paIe prettiness She twisted twIst d her form tonn twirled her hands staIn slam stammered leered I 1 thank you and collapsed In her tall and composed sisters arms anns Now in a box sat Leslie Carter who at every eYer performance of Adrea goes through with a process of being surprised by her ber audiences en enthusiasm enthusiasm becomes almost hysterical under the nervous tension runs as if jf by a sudden impulse to the wing seizes David DavJd B lasco leads him forward to tospe speak k for her and shrinks behind him Acting Undoubtedly Yet sometimes sometime she has to be carried to her dressing room In another box sat Ethel Barry Barrymore Barrymore Barrymore more who eight times a week comes out after atter the penultimate net act of ot Sun Sunday Sunday Sunday day astonished beyond anything by bythe b the Insistent applause falls Into a a panic at a caM call for a speech and runs behind the scenes as ag If it mad with ter terror terror terror Acting Unquestionably Yet sometimes she drops in a genuine faint when the curtain goes down Emotion Emotional al creatures these players Julie Herne the artist that Leslie and Ethel are and for tor that reason If no other there was no need to doubt the sin sincerity sincerity ol of 0 her ier coUr collapse e eThis S This Thin daughter of the late James A AHerne AHe Berne Herne He e had subjected herself hersel to a se sev severo severo v vero ro ordeal Minnie ie Fiske was among those present to scare her herI I assume that Miss Herne He had written 4 Wife Wire for Mrs Mra rs Fiske as one of or its two women Omen was vas of or a kind which that actress could make anake much of or and Mrs Mis Fiske had given her theatre for a week of or afternoon performances of or the play but Instead of airs FIskes genius to illumine the role thero there was only Miss Hernea Hernes moderate ability to dim It H It W any wonder that the poor girl who had bad striven In vain to get in inside inside Inside side the part fell to pieces the Instant she got out of it However she has bas distinguished herself as a novice at who may become profi proficient proficient dent If It Mrs Fiske were personating the wife of ot Richter the halt success of or the production might be a e whole one Mrs airs RIchter is la superficially like Sar dous doua featherbrained r ned with no care for her solid husband who therefore turns to her cousin as did dJ to her sister for sympathetic solace These surface indications are all that Miss Hernes acting us see in the uneasy life Ilfe and nud so we dont pity her but Mrs Fiske could 1 render visible all that Miss Herne had In mind when writing that Mrs Richter loves her husband that she Rhe is madly jealous of the fair cousin in whom he finds an affinity that she is agonized while seemingly careless and that therefore the discovery of or them in a passionate embrace hives drives her reasonably and d pitiably to suicide It was expected that a no play written by James A Semes Hernes daughter and staged by his widow would be an ex cx triune outbreak of at dramatic Hernea But JUchters Wife had no such phe phenomena phenomena Herne Home after many years in demonstrative demon melodrama become a convert romert to quiet literalism LIke many e a convert from one faith to a a very different one he was an extremist Be fore tore reaching that enthusiastic state however he Jle achieved ed his one really great reat popular success by retaining in Shore Acres the violent fight In i a lighthouse l and the ensuing shipwreck spectacle from the old play from which he rewrote that otherwise de natural depiction depletion of normal human feelings Hernes great merit was vas truthfulness and It led him Into the fault of giving as much space to physical as to mental matters The vie vis visible ible nursing of a babe at its mothers breast broast In Margaret Fleming was as made to seem more consequential than the invisible breaking of that mothers heart Julia Herne does no such things In her play y Indeed she Is more like a pupil of at Ibson Ibsen than her father She makes Mrs Richter an study In unlovely femininity Then again she Is dissimilar to Ibsen in striving to excuse the forbidden love of or Rich Richter Richter ter for her fair tall cousin The husband is Li a music master the cousin is a sin singer singer singer ger under his tutelage both are soul soulful soulful soulful ful and they convince themselves s that their mutual passion is 18 not a carnal disorder nor even an ordinary heart disease but a a case of paroxysms of the soul brought on by a complication of ot propinquity and affinity A A case of ot marital Infidelity Is set forth oddly In tIle the drama of ot The uThe Threshold by Jackson D Hang Haag The manner of the illustration Is as peculiar as the matter At first we see nothing but a a rainstorm at night Silvery SlIvery threads electric gleams end camera cam ra reflections produce an il ii illusion lusion of a downpour of real water After of at this In silence ex cx except except for the splashing of at the rain and the blowing of the wind we hear a amans amans amans mans voice and then a womans re response response spouse both in cautious tones Slowly and never more than dimly the thresh threshold threshold threshold old of or a country house is outlined also the figures of at the man who Implores the woman to elope with him and the woman who ho Is persuaded to consent Finally a n second man appears vaguely to confront the lovers with a pistol and compel them to go into the house There is 15 nothing in that you say to tomake tomake tomake make It a variant from common melo inelo melodrama melodrama drama Dont pass a hasty judgment I did dij and had to reverse it when I found that the captor of the couple was not the husband but a burglar who by chance had chosen that time to break Into the premises S SWe We had our first clear view of these three persons when inside the house the burglar turned up the light of or a alamp alamp lamp He looked like an ordinary op operator operator operator of ot the jimmy and the dark lan Ian lantern lantern tern I wonder why housebreakers never shave themselves or put on col collars collars colars lars ars before going out on a Job Per Perhaps Perhaps haps they do In real life Ufe This one was the stage type as to externals But he soon let the culprits know kno that he was wasn wasa n a rare bird of prey The libertine was wasa wasS S a R aich sch fellow and nd willing to buy bu the theother theother I other scoundrels silence He would give him twice as much in money as he could lug off in swag and then leave lea e him to finish Anish his lIs regular Job fob if It he wanted to toI toI I came here bore to steal the assets of or orthis this house said the cracksman and aud andI audI I wont let lot you steal Its liabilities Then he explained his astonishing at attitude attitude attitude in the affair He tad ad long Igo go bean saddened embittered ruined by bJ bythe bythe the elopement of ot his wife He had be become become become come a murderer by slaying the de despoiler despoiler spoiler r of or his home and afterward had hadS S led Jed the more sordidly criminal career of ot a robber Well Ten when he caught the present par paTr of runaway lovers his Im mm Impulse Impulse pulse was w s to thwart the tho man and save tho the woman Tho The Launcelot La of or this lat latest latest est romance of ot a matrimonial triangle slunk off oft abashed d the tile Guinevere re retreated retreated retreated treated In repentance to hoi her h l sleeping husbands side and the Giama ceo here no jester gone wrong wrongS S but a burglar gone right went on Ol his way without giving any hint as to his wits a ex except copt oh ob yes tha burglar 1 discovered di R that the woman he hail had was w whis wasS S his own daughter da Theatric and im lm IniS S S S V possible Nevertheless It may be beThe The Threshold over which Mr Haag will step into fame tame as a dramatist That was one of or the th short pieces given this week in Frank New York imitation of o Andre An tomes theatre in Paris You have read I of stage on which he pro produced produced produced all manner of ot unusual plays A recent French disclosure of this kind although not at that house was was an acting version of Edgar Allan Poes Pos S story The System of ot Dr Tarr and Professor Fether in which those two lunatics turned on the officers of at an asylum took control of at the place and put a visitor through a frightening demonstration of or the Tarr and Fether method of ot treating insanity Poe was not a joker and the scant humor of that tale was all grim The French play had no humor of ot any any kind but was altogether gruesome with the hor horrors horrors rora which might come in the described circumstances Paris likes to be im Ira impressed impressed pressed in that way Mr Ir Keenan did not test the question whether New York would enjoy such an awful sen sensation made by b Henry Tyr Tyrrell Tyrrell rell relI and Arthur Hornblow was sug sut by de do Lordes Lorde no doubt but Is no more like hike it than it had to be if u It was to follow the Poe original at all They locate loc te the asylum across the river from Gotham Go Tho The entrapped visitor is a state stae senator making a re investigation His ter with Tarr and Fether is facetious and not very different In plan and scope from front the numerous American farces turned madhouse mis nile miseries miseries eries erles to ridicule Tarr is a solemnly dignified graybeard with his theories of ot dementia Fether is more n while he describes and the senator try his curative feat of at flying from a mantel across the room to a 3 piano A comely girl has the de lusion that clothing ought to be worn inside instead of or outside and she Is inclined to make the experiment with her own gown The only repulsive pa tient shown ia is a grinning leering wretch who serves the supper to the imprisoned visitor with Its choice of a t beverage between and ala nia We hear the groans of ot the real superintendent of ot the asylum who is being beaten into submission to a coat of or tar and feathers off of stage stase but we ve are expected e to laugh lauh at that too to Mr Keenan is as likely eh as not to at a tract remunerative attention to his Antoine enterprise although althou h nothing of the kind has fever yet et done well here His theatre is a n tiny one off Broad Broadway Broadway Broadway way but close to the Delmonico a afi 3 Sherry corner of Fifth avenue his company is small smaIl though sufficiently capable suitable plays are plenty at low or no royalties and so he can live Uve on moderate receipts He Is himself an enthusiast in the matter of or dra dramatic dramatic dramatic matic are and literature and an actor with ample versatility for a variety of roles He was the burglar and the doc doe tor in the pieces described and In the theother theother theother other one onea a tragedy by Arthur Horn blow called The Strolling Players and based on Mendes Wo man of he was a bank who in a jealous slays his wanton wife while an audience audien thinks it is Ig all make believe The same story Is told In tho the opera of ot I cL This is a 13 week wee without out a new play Pla produced in the ordinary course of theatrical business Last week we had five which were not art for arts sake but merely commercial affairs with art only incidental and next week we ve shall shan have four more of those sordidly introduced things involving admirable actors and authors In the dreadful degradation of ot the stage Therefore the pessimists of last week wee I who will wUl be pessimists again next week might well have tried to be optimists this week Besides the Herne and Keenan beacons of hope we have hae had gleams of ot promise from matinee performances by various uplifting societies The Progressive Stage society gave lers hers Flirtation in which a dis die disgraced dIsgraced graced girls lover is shot and she is isso isso isso so devoted to him that she goes and dies on his grave The Academy r of ot Dramatic Arts presented Marriage which sets forth the familiar interferences of or a with her daughters daught rs hus husbands husbands husbands bands The Century The Theatre Theatre Theatre atre club exploited Cleveland Moffit and Sydney R A Lesson for Wives in which a fascinating actress raises hobs with a husband and his wife The Th Thalia Coterie performed lit iii German God Man and the Devil in which the voice oice of ot o Jehovah Is heard to make a wager with the visible Devil as to the evil en ones ons abil ability ability ability ity to land a certain man in hell The Devil plays pla s a long shrewd game to win and md almost succeeds This Is a reverential play though most Ameri Amen American American can Christians would regard It as And we have hae had repetitions repetitions repetitions of or some of or William Butler Yeats Irish literary plays given very expert expertly e pert pertly ly at matinees by the com corn company company pany Thus weve had a range of un commercial plays plas from pretentious worthlessness to genuinely ly peculiar merit Even in vaudeville this week gives us some dramatic art that is genuine At one house I saw Archie Boyd Bod with only one assistant actor in a sketch that made my eyes ees leak B yd is a counterpart of Denman Thompson and you may have seen him play Thomp Thompsons Thompsons Thompsons sons role in The Old Homestead without knowing it for they do say that Thompson Thomson sometimes gets a va vacation vacation vacation cation that way wa Boyd has just such suli sucha sulia a part In After Many Years in which quaintly humorous rusticity is accompanied accompanIed by the pathos of or an old farm farmers farmers farmers ers longing for his wayward son and his simple simle joy at the wanderers re return return return turn And If I gone to see Boyd I have seen Carlotta She is a 3 young woman who loops the loop on a bicycle and I am told that folks stop in day after day in hope hopeful hopeful hopeful ful dread that they may ma be there when she breaks her neck In another variety ar show ho I saw Mary Shaw the accomplished actress of Ib Ibsen Ibsen Ibsen sen and a d I wanted to find out how a audience audience would take a condensed Ver Version Version version sion of Ghosts or Magda but Miss ll S Shaw had 11 ad decided not to test the tick ticklish ticklish lish question She substituted the old ol of or The Silent System Her quiet skill was finely effectual with the same crowd which ten minutes min tes later latr lat r was howling over the noisy je JE jests ts and clownish antics of or Eddie Foy in ina ina ina a knockabout farce And again agam there here was as keen appreciation of the half dozen ozen demure devils of showgirls who appeared In pajamas of or shy modesty but came back for a 8 disclosure in the tile tights of bold audacity The tastes of vaudeville audiences seem to be broad broa and and d catholic thOUc |
