The evening world. Newspaper, August 23, 1913, Page 9

‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” a Southern Play, | Real Dramatic Novelty to New Yorkers CABIT CHILLY Bur NWOT A RUSSIAN BavLeT"” —v — —— Fa afitil Radical Departure From| White Slavery Drama, It Is Intensely Modern, ‘and Among Other Things Suggests the Feminist Movement in Scene That Shows Eliza Crossing the Ice. By Charles Darnton. NV esctine among the pro- ELIZA i) AUNT OPHELIA SIMON LEGREE ductions of the wevk Is “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” a Southern play that comes as a real dramatic novelty to New York. With our drama slowly but profit- aly selling itself into white slavery, fs {t any wonder we should turn to “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” that we should get a transfer from Broadway and take @ crosstown car to the Manhat- tan Opera House, ‘where this play 19 at the same time a fatalist with @ mordant realism that makes Ibsen, Strindberg and other gloomy Gusses seem mere sentimentalists, And what was Ibsen's Nora that Mrs. St. re is not? This Southern lady slams the door on her hor band, it ty true; but that mi @ profound knowledge of the intluence of climate on character. One Onds so many things tn “Uncle Tom's Cabin" Just by looking around a fe phrase the rhe bi : of Masefleld t¥ nade so great an appeal that Pers into the ear of the world, Is tie] bit, The brutal realism bg & ube He b die dea? World deaf? It ts for us to say. [ outstripped, for example, in that ter- i edgagement has beon extended? can uniy wit on the doorstep le fgure, Simon Legree, Here, above No it ls not. wonder.) (We mean tt dan't any all, !s a forceful character, ‘The crack of his whip will be heard until !t t# d is en, and os hear, THE EVENING WORLD, {the auction he was extremely rough. rs VNcLe, Tore To add to the tortures of victims a brags band played at that auction, We maintain that a wrong note wae strutk by that band. Fur- when a lawyer named Marks fitty-ntty reminded of ® certain theatrical menager who is not concerned in the production of this Play, and for a moment our interest Why not bla more, or less? the suggestion for what it is | worth, It is ever our aim to make Playa better and truer. The influence of Arnold Bennett {e to be found, perhaps, in the character of Ophelia, a quaintly tndividual figure given largely to housework and forever saying shiftless!" Ophelia estimation as her heart This development of char- ter is gratifying. Nothing is ao nour- ishing to the drama as the milk of human kindness, Gin, unfortunately, is the mainstay of Marke. He is summed up—summed up significantly, one might aay—in the! Phrase “Sam's a necessary: evil.” Hut} |gin tan't, One feels that, doesn't one? | Sul, it may be that Marks feels it necesmary to fortify him againet the sudden and strange changes in climate that were Indicated by the scenery last night. Broadway’s Latest Critic, And Mr. Biggers Is Pro- SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 1913. “New York Makes a Paintul Try tor Gaiety” —And This From “The Champion of Frivolity” Earl Derr Biggers, Au-| thor of “‘Seven Keys to Baldpate,” Which U.S. Flag Cohan Is Getting) Ready for the Boards,| Sees Nothing but Gloom in This Fair Town. \@ fessedly “Frivolous,” Having Accomplished, as He Confesses Him- self, the Herculean Ef- fort of Being Frivolous for Four Whole Years— in Boston! Marcuerite Mooers Marshall. Broadway is the GAY white way—aot. Mew York ts the bright- ost, lightest, giddiest little old tows in the U. &. of A—only it fen't, ‘The greatest modern myth fe the notion that you can have real, frivolous, free-aud-easy fun in the professional good time gar Gerdid persons who approach the to Little stlenced by the crack of doom, We say | adequate: thenete ne Production was| Gq argund Forty-second street. Grama os they would a tendertoln steak Ing us We approach her © alo without fear, ‘The actor who em-|of the play led us to expect that Livie| ‘Thue Broadway's latest critic, Bart may Mot agree with us, But we wither la not all, Possessing ths] bodied this sturdy character appeared | Eva would take her fight in'an aie! Derr Biggers, who will make « Bro id wif aero-| Derr Big faa Gin Gur) woorn: leaving) Cain of Hauptina she | to take fiendish delight In his work. At} plane way debut pretty soon. Most of us know! quite well done, s0 to way. No new art! ——————— -—— s = | oe aire ingen wale tito bexnsing form has ever made {ts way unchal- “St Ri h Thi We T k L k t O t [ranks with “Heven Keys to Baldpate, : ’ ; the amusingly kaleldescopic tale of what fnew" ese ue “Step Right This Way, Take a Look at Our Octopus, | sniniy sinus ico wat “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” so daring and so| 0 *t ep on ‘oes or ou f] e ur 99} wort cloned for the winter. novel radical a departure from the conven | b tD St Its T t t Mi t d ort clo : alan Mean onbne aramiar anouie actuee a eee n ‘Pp ig (4 i will be produced in dramatic form by aterm of discussion. We have with us this evening the safely qua Yet all must agree that this intensely octopus. There are various kinds of] was brought here by Chapman Grand modern play ‘s alike a revolt against octopl There ts the seagoing vartety] with a lot of tropical fish for the Chil- the false romance of Harrie and the and the land grabbing confraternity | dren's Museum of Brooklyn. falpe reallsm of Bernard Shaw, Isn't it? Of course it Is. Doult has no piace in @ramatic criticism. Harrie has perches | @ hero in a tree top, put a herolne on ! Gur octopus halls from Key Weet and ts} The Aquarium product ts of the sea- Gwers’ Houses," but he m: admit he did not p Je da work on “Uncle in” We * ould lash other dramatists the whip of a Legreo if thelr cries were thuate to our enrs, but Cruelty has ever knocked at our door without response, ‘At the Manhattan Opera House last fight we sat in silence before “Uncle ‘Tom's Cabin" and marvelled at the Dloodhounds. Firat of all, the diffeut- tles overcome in presenting this drama were apparent. It {s much easter to find acters than It Is to engage hoodhounds, Theh, too, bloodhounds seldom have predilection for the stage, Perhape, mussied as they are, they find it im pesaible to express themselves, How- ever, they got along very well in their Purdvit of Eliza last night. ‘At this point the essentially Southern play was given a Northern touch. 1 eeemed @ bit chilly as Pliza dancer across the co, but this divertissement wae not, as one Judged at first Klance, a Russian ballet. It was more like the tango, a slipping, gliding movement fur of meaning, yet discreet, Slowly buy sorely the truth was borne in upon us that Eliza was not passionate fone of do behind withovt \ was on the surf: the rushing w and that she was leaving them tn regrets, All this Beneath It all, tike eneath foo, could be discerned the feminist moves ment, Hliza wew but a symbol such ay ¢ Tosen might have ‘ : Again in Topsy, a # ¥ minis} ¢ tive characterization, t ww of tor} . day spoke. “I jes’ growed,’ she said, | Neon te Tattle Eva, speaking as @ chikdd lo a * ‘ A ; | cruatacea: The land grabbing octopu head and eight tentacles. The octopus {a wald to be very tind and inoffensive. | When it grows up it geta over that. eight tentacles—many more. When the Rockefeller octopus was a boraing, it was also timid. Aa tt grew wreater and greater, it became very bold, like tts fellow af the sea. Out on the Pacific Const the devil fish grow to | reat length and strength. It is nothing for one of them to grad « Ashing boat, and reach up for the fsiermen. The fishermen enjoin them with an axe There ere a lot of octop! wandering | cleco, shy of tentacles, A The Standard O4 octopus, and “ite Kindred octopl don't atop at crushing! Uttle Ashing boats, They lick up vast! flelds of ofl and then the rest of their leaving thetr tracks all dirty and muddy) W the octopus. The octopus at th Aquar | ri has the crust to prey on everything in| {0# experience I feat waa tnd able to tell abc at the Aquartum. fact that the gate of Matteaw left open on last Sunday morn: Uke the cuttle fiah, which ts a #peotes of frat page im ta the) very pretty first of the kind to get here and to be is 's tered at the Aquarium. He) going variety, It preya on mollusks and) George M. Cohan thi# autumn, Meanwhile Mr. Biggers la recuperat- from a brief sojourn “in gay New ie Ni bt to elle mea, The Aquartum monopoly has one | Tair Not that he has to paint away from his smiling blue eyes any large lack stain, Nothing ike that, Hut Mr. Biggers Is daily massaging a sadly The Standard Ot! octopus has more than | strained wense of fun. You ace, he is @ seasoned champtlon of frivolity, For four aolit years he was frivolous in Hoxton, and from painful you that his He admits an assy 4d hereulean, 1 t it. Those who have ne before have all been terrorized | the landed octopl, and have fated away into premature graves, |around the Golden Gate at San Fran-| none of them ever landed alive at the At any rate, rium, it Is @ wonderful thing we have If it weren't for the nh were and Grabbin, lide down easily, They, that Thaw is in Canada, 4 the swallow fects of ships and miles of further fact that we have also on ratiroads, Qccaatonally the early feeling Mvition two Governors af New York, | of Umidity overcomes them. Thene are and that Gaynor is willing to run for! the times when Congress gets busy and| Mayor aguin, if the people let-—want the big octop! killer goes swashing about) him; and that Mexic has the whoop: | In thelr sea. Then they run to cover,|ing cough—and a few things like that, © would have the octopus on the Sure. ‘The octopus at the Aquariuin te noy octopus is pretty wry as | Wher aie i have a reach [that will x Adestey, | The reach o nw © en of the ht this way, and don't ectopus'’s toes. You might get buried | play tn a ¢ at Tne CHAMPLOW OF PRIVeUTY Sees BACABWAY AWo Ware “TEveW Your GuvmMew TARE THE NSELVED SeRioUsLyY that he came away feeling lke the chorus lady who boasted: ‘Twenty yeara in musical comedy and never lost ® spangle!? And yet he finds New York and New Yorkers ntill leas amusing the City of the Puritans. “Why, even the guninen here lack a sense of humor! he informed me. “They don't shoot blithely, lke the fol- lowers of Capt. Kidd, When the ave age New York gunman‘s not a-«unnin he's # sentimental Tommy gort of muy, that writes r old pal’ letters and weeps grimy tears at the thought of the chee-yild, “New York makes a painful, haggard try for gaiety. Your real ‘Mew Yorker's iden of the height of frivolity is to summon a waiter by creoking his finger. So long as he cam order withont losing his voice he thinks he is a gay dog, of course betag encouraged in his delusion by the cont room bandit, the waiter and the chauffeur, But don't think they get any fun ont of it. The otingers in Mew York are a0 Gloomy as the stung. “Any one to the contrary, we are a rious nation,” continued Mr, Biggers. With us life is real, Ife rhent and to be grave Is Its principal goal. If T am the champion of frivolity I's not becauno I think I aim superlatively well adapted to that proud position, but be- caune frivolity needs every champion it can get “Every one Is The women's clubs, berg and eux combined againat it. mad with Strin ica, brand !t aa a crime, The Chatauquas try to aquelch tt with] their elevated piffie, There Is a wite- | spread idea that a frivolous book or eet affront to the Intelli- went mind,” | “But surely you ean find giddiness in New York!" [pro New York woman # Joysul thing?" Now, of course, Mr. Riggers may be 4 ‘dan't the @lunder, THE WeWTORKER 15 A "GAY Pow" te Tc CAFE, prejudiced because he married a par- ticularly nice Boston girl dot long ago. But this is what he sald: “The evening newspapers take the ‘liew seriously, too,” added Mr. Big- we with a twinkle, ‘ow, lan't it @ will be ‘Biggers 8 Sense of Humor? I reserved deciaton, and then thie bola young man remarked calmly; “Of course t it majority of Americans have pu of humor, ou'd ike proof? Wel, when I was in Boston I often passed the office of a Society for the Promotion of World Women Have No at & mahogany desk on an Oriental rug. Ife was the secretary and he drew a good salary for sitting there on Beacon eet, Boston, and promoting peace ng the nations of the world. T some- times wonderet what would happen If that little man suddenly developed a of humor, But he nev ther did the dear o 4 revival of # musical show town, The show was a bdromidic fi vorite and about ten years old, 1 thought I'd get a new angle on my the scheme of revival as some success for It, but pointing out j that 1t wee montly @ rehash of the musical shows r the past ten yea: o my editor? I did ing rushed at me with a roar of pain. He thundered that the show was NOT @ new one, and that I'd made a fearful At leant fifty-four readers mailed me sarcastic letters asking If IT knew the civil war was ov. The 10-to-1 shot that the head on the story Peace. Inside I saw a iitth man sitting Once, when T was reviewing plays far a dally newspaper, e@ to} al story and please my editor, Bo I evolved though It were a new show, predicting| entering No. 26 Broad the review he comedian of the plece walked the streets crying gloud that here was @ guy who thought thin was a new show, never succeeded in explaining that awful break.” Mr. Biggere paused to dispose of a reminiscent and unrepentant chuckle Then he rushed on enthuslaatically, wouldn't « sense of humor do for Mew York? 1% would pre- ; H j i Ht i i i i i i 3 ef ting alent magazine x story—because no writer could go on claiming that his purpose in doing that kind of ing was highly moral without laff. ing right out loud. And it would also annihilate the sentimental gush, the kind in which the eweet-faced waif with the ‘from Webster vocabulary re- forms & dosen burglars and a Wall Street broker by her sunshiny ways. “The profits of frivolity are numerqua, as y of the frivolous will tell you, Included are & roster outlook on life, @ glorious peace within, an unruffled tem. per, to may nothing of giving the serious minded an occasional jolt in the rige!* “Why do you suppose so few of us are frivolous?” I asked. “Well, people have spread the impress sion that to be flippant Is to be offense meanly jJocund,” eaid Mr. Big, But they are wrong. Your true fri ler {a far from wanting to affront with his fippancy. He ier't noisy tp his joyous. ness. On the contrary, he is happy in the manner of a United States Senator y—quietly and unostentatiously.”* “Ana what te your recipe tor frivolity?” £ inquired finally. “But since fam posing as « defender of frivolity,” the playwright concluded, with due modesty, “I can hardly take myself weriously exough to claim that £ have originated any blown-in-the-bottle formula for this happy state of mind," How Farley the Strike Breaker Hised His “Breakers” James Farley, the strike breaker, who} at the point of death defied his doctors | n Thursday and went to the race track | to nee his favorite horse run and, as t developed, wir natrated @ little of the old e spirit which once made! him the tost feared and beat hated man in the realms of union lab ana feurles man, | | Farley way known and Ms work showed that he and fear| were atrengers, Ho was sent for from near and far tn the heyday of his ca. He to eal! upon strikes fu abl reer to take had the reputa shortest # ie them Matted States, a Humber of men to a point in rey had nm whom he ould always rely vs when unde a strike thought that the principle tor which the @trikera fought was right Some of his wo brews When he Kreatest battles resulted froin breaking Up street car striie Farley usually w out himself on the first car that was run, and while it Was attac fr all quarters the strikers always falled to take the atrike bre ff the car and the round trip was ¢. Other crews Were not as successful as taut under Farley. Cars wore smashed and the mon rent back to the ar house imalnod and ding, All the while the reeral Was wolng on In the offices of the railway company Men responied to the advertisements of the company, men who Were out uf work and willing to take their lives! In their hands for the sake of the big ed. The majority of men never knew who hired thei. to them was a name only, sot a Joo during those una inte personal der without belng sat back tn the last oMce to the applicants were admitted di Hothing to way. His own tried men passed upon the applicants as they Were lined up tn the outer ofve, Ite [men were in the inside omce and it wax they who propounded the test Questions prepared by their chief. The applicants were questioned as to their union aM@ilations. ‘They were asked as to their ability to take care of themselves whether policemen were on the cars with them or not "Would you be willing to Jum [ear Just brought into the car noua with the motorman stretched out on the platform beaten by the striker j,urulset and bleeding, and the condu F laid out on the rear platform, une conscious, and cut up about the head and the body This was the nature of the last quese. tion propounded to the app j ley Watched each man all th a question after question was aske never spoke a word, If at iuestion, asked gency, the applicant batted an eye, If his lip trembled or th | slighcest fl ame into his ol [ley made a sign to his men with hie {head and the ap told that he would be apprised when he wae wanted. If Warley signified approval} the man was employed then and there,