Life — April 10, 1902 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Photo by Melntosh, The Strange Things They Do. W itHour carping, it is quite fair to ask what is the good of such a play as “A Modern Magdalen.” It’s logical, to be sure. It points the fact that the woman who departs from certain paths in the belief that money will make + her forget what she has done and what a great many e3- timable people consider wrong, is bound eventually to realize that memory is stronger than forgettery, and that even if she could forget, other people won't let her. This logic is as old as the Christian religion—perhaps even older. Made evident in the crude way of A Modern Magdalen,” i neither points a moral nor adorns the stage. It is the old story of the poor girl, the temptation of money, and the inevitable remorse, all placed in worn-out dramatic situations. The first two acts occur in a New York tenement evidently transported direct from Whitechapel so far as appearances go. The others are in a Tenderloin apartment undoubtedly fitted up by one of the firms who make a specialty of equipping any flat complete from kitchen to parlor on fifteen minutes’ notice and on the instalment plan, with the right to remove the equipment fifteen minutes after any instalment becomes due and is not paid, Scarlet is made the ling color, as an artistic and delicate to the carcer of the heroine. The y of her life is made apparent by the old device of a noisy supper party in an adjoining room, whose noise is turned on or shut off by a pair of sliding-doors,depending on the necessities of the situations on the stage proper. Miss Amelia Bingham fails to get much sympathy for Katinka, either in the earlier or later stages of that unfortunate young woman's career. She carries too much of the plumpness of prosperity to convince us that she suffers to the point of temptation as the daughter of poor parents, The «LIFE with her constitution to suggest a very poignant degreeof remorse. In both aspects she shows a lack of temperament. Mr. Henry A, Dixey throws into the part of the drunken but always optimistic father who is not ashamed to live on his daughter'sgains, a debonair grace and humorous finish which makes the disreputable old fellow a charac- ter likable in the way Dickens used to make some of his scamps likable. Mr. Wilton Lackaye makes a good deal of the uncon- genial part of Brinker, a matter-of-fact money-lender and would-be tempter of Katinka, He does the best that can be done with it, as does Mr. Gottschalk, who is also mis-cast as the hypocritical emissary of a society for the suppression of vice. Neither morality nor dramatic art is likely to receive any new and strong im- petus from the presentation of ‘A Modern Magdalen.” ° ° Ho not to do things is shown admira- bly in “ Life” at the Garden Theatre. The play is by Mr. Anson Pond, and in itself is not worse than some local melo- dramas which have met with success. It lacks the strength and desperation one associates with these thrilling depictions of metropolitan existence, but some of its types are well drawn, and some of the situations have value. But the Syndicate, in all its long career of doing things on the cheap, has never given for the price of admission a weaker cast, a poorer setting, or a worse example of stage production, It is always dangerous to attempt to reproduce on the stage scenes with which the public is familiar, but in the imported English melo- dramas, and even in some which originated here, this has been done on a scale and in a way to inspire at least some respect for the effort. Derision, and well-deserved derision, greets the scenes labelled ‘* Wal- dorf-Astoria” and ‘* Grand Central Railroad Station” at the Garden Theatre. They would be jeered at in Kankakee or Musca- tine. With one or two exceptions, the company fits the scenery, and the stage- management rises to the level of both. The Garden Theatre seems to be on the downward path as a popular home of the drama, but it has not yet reached the point where it deserves such productions ns that given to “ Life Metcalfe, LIFE'S CONFIDENTIAL GUIDE TO THE THEATRES, Academy of Muste.—Blanche Batesas Cigarette in “Under Two Flags.” Thrilling melodrama, with ecentc effects on a large scale. BYou.—Amelia Bingham and company in +A Modern Magdalen."" See above. “WHY, MIGDPLY! WAT HAS TAPPEXED?” “1 GOT TANGLED UP IN 4 WIRELESS TELE- Grara Messacr.” and gorgeously spectacular “ Beast."* Criterion. —“ Da Barry," with Mra. Leslle Carter as the heroine. Tragic and interesting. Daly's —Revival of clever and musical “San Toy.” Empire.—*The Twin Sister.” translation of Fulda’s comedy. Garrick.—" Sky Farm.” Mediocre New Eng- land farm play. Garden.—"' Life." See above, Herald Square.—Tonetul and attractive “ Dolly Varden,” with Lulu Giaser in the title part, Knickerbocker. — “The Toreador. tlonal comic opera, Manhattan.—" Her Lord and Master.” what amusing. Madison Square-—Willam Colller in “The Diplomat.” Light but amusing play of the Tendertotn type. Repubsie.—"* As You Like It." Very well done by Henrietta Crosman and capable company. Savoy.—“ Soldiers of Fortune," Excellent pre- sentation of stage version of the novel. Amusing. Beauty and the ‘Well presented Conven- Some- Victorta,—French opera company tn répertotre, Waltack’s—"A Gentleman of France,” with Kyrie Bellew as the fighting hero, Weber and Flelds's Musie Halt.—Burlesque and vandeville, The cost of admission 1s no bur- lesque. The Pug : SAY, PERCY MONTMOREXCY, WilaT KIND Tenderloin life evidently agrees too well OF ANTLVAT DO YOU USE ANYWAY? Broadvay.—No cessation of the fan, music comicbooks.com