| Show I NED ROYLES NEW PLAY CREATES A STIR AMONG NEW YORK CRITICS m f pf r rr r i jr EDWIN MILTON ROYLE Author of The Struggle Everlasting the Latest Sensation in Dramatic Circles Through T rough Its Us wide departure from all dra dramatic dramatic dramatic matic conventions the new play The Struggle Everlasting written by Edwin Milton Royle son of Judge and Mrs J C CRoyle CRoyle CRoyle Royle of this city has set the whole the theatrical theatrical theatrical world agog It Is the fIrst American morality play pIa ever staged and Its production at the Hackett theatre In New York with Flor Florence Florence Florence ence Roberts and Arthur Byron in the leading roles has caused a furore among press and critics that has not been equaled for many years ears Commenting on this play In the Morn Morning MornIng Morning ing Telegraph Rennold Wolf Volf one of New Yorks ablest abl st critics says In all his history history history tory of the modern stage there ther has not been so wide a departure from the beaten pathway of dramatic rule and convention as The Struggle Everlasting the play pia by b bEdwin Edwin Milton Royle The description sup supplied supplied supplied plied by the program A modern morality play pIa fits It exactly It goes back cen ecu centuries centuries tunes to the period when allegory was the staple of literature and drama and it goes gs ahead an incalculable In distance of time In its defiance of popular taste and ambition for an intellectual theatre The New York Times usually quick to condemn and slow to praise gives its im impressions impressions impressions of the play playas as follows It Is Isone Isme isone one me of the most important works wor that any American dramatist has yet produced in that it attempts to vitalize vi lIze through the medium of the stage a dormant public conscience and it does this not in a di didactic didactic didactic way but through the presentation of a series of dramatic pictures the gen general general general eral truth of which no one will deny den Jt B Justifies its description as a modern mo moo morality morality play Sublimated assurance is the subtitle suggested by the New York Commercial which says sas No one less sure of him himself himself self s lf would have dared to father a work at once so original and so slavish a copy so daring and arid so simple so weighty with eternal principles and so barren of theat theatric theatric ric lie bombast I Says the Evening Suit Sub Mr Edwin E Royle made a daring experiment when he produced The Struggle Everlasting Everlasting Everlasting ing at the Hackett last but the play pIa proved so out of the ordinary In spite of ot sombreness and mystic atmosphere that It stands a strong chance of ot scoring a success The play pia typifies the endless struggle between Body Mind and Soul In the pro prologue prologue prologue logue Body Bod is a sort of wood nymph She leads young oung Mind astray astra kills his mother who tries to save him and then when Mind repulses her Body Bod declares her hr 11 I de determination determination determination termination to dog his footsteps f In other otner forms throughout his life |
