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Show 8S COLONY PRODUCES PLAT hik" s Characterized by Whiskers and Make-up jV Itort op fight for liberty Will Not Take a Place as a Literary but Answers the Purposes for Which It Was Given in New York. I i . By Vanderheuden Fyles . I; New York, May i, Ivll. . , 'j four ait. By Myra When. . '( ifitstcr. ' Wayne Arey Edwin M'Tlatu '" Alexander Calvcit .11, t ytulcv : Jivotno Hninor .' . X. Palmer Collins " Orrin rehear w Arthur Burke "-- "' Kdwaul 1'ar-ly Edward Worm " Koydea Erlynm . fohn "Muy .. Harold Mirrlam ""''. Oluf SkHvian ij Harold Hubert W' H. "Dtipont " Jcoffrey Heath - . " R. A. Pre ' " -; , Jtoffroy Heath "' I,t Oluf Pkaviau . "".' Orrin Slicsr '' Harley Knoies Kupenii Mhjuuib Nina I-.- I-indHay ' Rosalie Math lev Blanche Br in :! ' Catherine Calhoun :. rc ilKr A pi ay in nn art. fly Hr-J Hr-J ;' iis. (r-ortv-fishth Street theaier.l Whl t ford Kano ' lii, '. Alvin Kaufman " -1a Kate Morgan r,M Maude Ijslle r TYHT" A dramatic reminiscent of :- R.'-iie Rev. Forfre. Phillips. (Korty--": ffft theater.) ';- , A WalMs Hark ;- r 5 ; Shirley Brai thewaite Charles AiiPtnn '"" Leonard Grey " AV'S MONEY" A melodramatic farce. ' Agnes Dorm tree , tw OF A MAN" A drama in one act. W Vera Campbell. (Pony-eighth Street ' Waltls Clark Charles I.ane Bertha iUn" OK a lot of actors and a lot mtr to stage "Vik" at Wal-"- "'-heater. The result can hardly "-'IP have Justified the extrava-n- But the Swiss were pleased. - t nel we care? You see; the "swiss societies of New lork. r ihev may be, paw no rea- - ; ' V Irish players. Scotch, lid- nrl what-not-others should i'i r on the stase while only -' lani remained unrepresented. gathered together a quantity v .rr u, whiskers, wlg. ferocious f id mild actora out of jobs and J d a plav about the birth of irv among the HelvetH "the advent of Christian ?s not long after the death st It cannot be said that : ina is likely to take Its place ;: erarv classic; indeed, at times ' j :r ed io run down entirely and But the hairy actors were he curtain was up. the lights ''" "rned on; something had to be 'E-' ) somehow or other they prave a fresh cranking up and kept ' '(which should be pronounced j- te with Mike; that is to say, ig you have any desire to ' t it at all), began to the ac-merit ac-merit of Rubinstein's "Melo--' " ," and ended to a lotid yawn. -z-z :: 'ere four acts. The plot began -yiar in the third. A great of actors with luxuriant j looking like a Wagnerian I night at the opera house, ; T'- elvetiian chieftains and their .1 . Esobar, the high muck-a- ' all, had "got religion." He fact, met up with a Christian nd decided to go with him to r"-"S ierneas, to study, ponder and - Ho a new leader must be The honor fallH to Vik, part-i: part-i: las he is a descendent of one -i- a mighty warrior who is . d, therefore, not on the sal-W.W' sal-W.W' but largely because our no- : carries on his chin the thick-7-L srhrttsh of all. To be prop- tailed as chief of chiefs, "Vik s i- o a lot of swearing. He must i oath to respect and uphold ""Ibal traditions than a thirty - gree Mason. Amone other he swears to Inflict on :v-t:' should he ever disobey the i;f-'the people, the penalty of - '3l right into a blazing fire and '3 :i there until he has been thor- ,-7-irHIed on both sides. :.- Vik pets himself and his fol-'S fol-'S "Mitn a little unpleasantness :-? ! Roman consul and the leud-a"" leud-a"" e Vjillals, en allied tribe, and f.':-T'i't see anv way out of it un-j- naiTie? Miss Vallais. She is a rl, h it Vik already has a wifR. iur!i in advance of his time z'J- 'I ctq to killing his wife. Tn any refuses absolutely to do away -? :' " on Tuesday. Eut the Hei-"" Hei-"" 'tsi. They 'are not strong :o dofv th Vallais anti Rome, -'eir will ilnally prevails. Vik ff-j ' :ti. Vik to the slaughter. He jvif ... dumdest to ho a good Hcl-:-r"-' 0 do away with her with a " V-.: ;-rharp phoelt ; but at the last '-, f-r;-' he rpcoils. He .lust can't do 'r'i'i' ""hals. disgusted with svir-h :: "W-. s ri ;1 hus'-nnd. move on him ',-t-ht( pretty well do for the whole crowd. Rut allies waiting in the wings bound in to the rescue in what Jal:1s Sherwin uptly calls "the celebrated nick of time." The Hel-vetli Hel-vetli aio saved. Hut ViU must pav the penalty of disobedience to the will nf his people. A lusty tire is built and lighted. Vik says farewell to the wife who caused all the trouble and is about to step into the Are and conduct himself like a porterhouse steak when Esobar comes hurrvlng back from the wilderness. 'He, "too, is in the celebrated nick of time. The Christian monk has converted him completely. A great light has burst upon him. A grilled chieftain, he ar-g-ues, is of no use at all to a tribe. He preaches the doctrines of humanity, human-ity, democracy and brotherly love to the warriors. And eloquent 'he is, for almost immediately they put their knotty clubs away in lavender, draw Vik from the pyre before a whisker has been singed, and sit down for a peaceful, gentle evening of light sewing sew-ing and polite conversation. A Holbrook Blinn.'s words ami - JLaurette Taylor's work to be of no avail? About two months ago Mr. HI inn scolded us rather severelv for not appreciating the one-act piaV at Its true value as an art form; and a few days later Miss Taylor proved the case by pnxHn-ing two uncommonly uncommon-ly admirable short plavs and one other by her husband. J. Hartley Man- ners. and. Kivln,g them the invaluable aid of her own and Violet Kemble Cooper's, H. Hassard Snort's and 11. Reeves-Smith's histrionic. skill, achieved one of the artistic successes of the season, and not without sume financial profit. Before that the dramatist dra-matist who "saw" his theme in cameo, just as Poe achieved the maximum of literary art In the minimum of words, had no chance of a hearing beyond the reading public. A one-act play meant a "curtain raiser," or a vaudeville vaude-ville sketch; nr. at best, h "shocker" to arouse police interference and the dollars of the morbid. The fact that ' Kditli Wharton. Oscar Wilde, Richard Hurdlng Davis, C. K. Chesterton. Rachel Crothers. Joseph Conrad. John Iaither Long. Max Beerbohm and several sev-eral other literary leaders of the day have given us some of their best work in tile form of one-act plays re- , malned unknown or. at least, known only to the few so far as unreading; playg-oers are -concerned. Nobody thought of producing their brevities except in the cases of "Salome" and "Madame Butterfly." which became mere excuses for the noisier genius 'of Strauss and Puccini. Miss Taylor's matineos and especially espe-cially their financial success seemed to promise something better. But now comes an organization called The Playlet Play-let company to throw the hill of one-act one-act plays back Into all its old-time guarantee of dullness. Being; as op- I tit mi stic as I am ingenuous, I set forth for the matfnee at the Forty-eighth Forty-eighth Street theater with all that hopeful trustfulness that has been so ; often outraged; nay, even out of the i glorious spring sunshine I went into the stuffy unreality, the maudlin sentiment, sent-iment, the theatric claptrap. It had been rumored that, should the four new plays -be hailed with the expected admiration, they would be shipped immediately to the Little theater, in Philadelphia, an unfortunate playhouse play-house which was so astounded and confused by the solid success of Annie An-nie Russell's season of Old Comedy that it ejected her with Goldsmith. Sheridan, Chippendale furniture, Gad-zooks, Gad-zooks, Oswald Yorke and all and with small ceremony. But rude as the Little Lit-tle theater was to such an unheard of thing as a success within its walls, its worst enemy would not wish The Playlet company on it. LET ME hasten to explain that I do not mean The Playlet company com-pany itself several of the actors are notably good and none are bad ; I mean 'the plays the Playlets play. Being a devout disciple of Schopenhauer, Schopen-hauer, Strindberg, George M. Cohan and the other leading thinkers of the period, I believe in the creed, "Always leave them laughing when you say good-by." So the last shall be first and the first shall be last, for "Lonesome "Lone-some Like," which started the afternoon, after-noon, was the only one of the four plays that justifies any genuine praise. The nieces descended rapidly; by the time the fourth and 4 p. m. had been reached, we seemed to have struck rock bottom: the matinee came to an end because nothing worse than "The Worth of a Man" had been unearthed. un-earthed. A woman behind me said. "Onlv a woman would write a play like that." I will not bring down on my head the wrath of a worthy sex by" agreeing with her over my own name. Tt was a drab dav in a workman s cottage, on the outskirts of a small English town. Baby was asleep in a cradle; Jess was ironing limp nothings noth-ings on a red tablecloth with an Ice-r-oid iron; gloom fell on the motionless motion-less leaves of the autumnal backdrop. Though I cannot prove It, I have no doubt the cat lay dead under the kitchen stove. From time to time, less dragged herself over to the cradle, looked hopelessly into It. sang to it and rocked it. Then she went to the kitchen stove and, leaning over the cerise coals, searched for an iron nuldp'r than the one she had. and re-. re-. turned to her work. A few repetitions repeti-tions of this and we were prepared for the worst. And, I may say, we koL it Tom Karno, big hearted Tom, |