Life, 1909-11-04 · page 24 of 52
Life — November 4, 1909 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This drama review discusses Augustus Thomas's play "The Harvest Moon." The satire targets the *danger of hereditary suggestion*—the period's anxiety that merely *knowing* about a disreputable ancestor could psychologically destine you toward crime or vice. The review criticizes Thomas's thesis: that simply *telling* someone "your uncle was a con artist" or "your mother drank" might actually *cause* them to become one through mental suggestion. Thomas apparently argues in the play that such talk is harmful despite good intentions. The illustrated domestic scene (lower left, captioned with dialogue about a child's lap) exemplifies family interactions where hereditary warnings occur. The rural landscape scene (right) shows the play's pastoral setting. The review's tone is gently mocking—Thomas's "psychical discoveries" about color's influence on temperament and hereditary suggestion appear presented as pseudo-scientific. The only praised element is George Nash's performance as a sophisticated French gentleman character, offering an atypical, intelligent portrayal against conventional stereotypes.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Forget Your Heredity.—Mr. Bernstein's Joke ID you ever have an uncle sent 10 prison for sell- ing gold bricks to confiding strangers? And, if you. re- sembled him in looks, did mem- bers of your family constantly tell you to avoid brickyards and to insist on formal intro: ductions, lest the influence of heredity get you also. into prison? . perchance, amor nediate ancestors was one of bibulous practices and your relatives never talked to you without suggesting the danger in your particular case of look- ing upon the wine when it was red, white or blue Mr. Augustus Thomas in his latest play, “The Harvest Moon," says this kind of talk does a lot of harm. The mental suggestion it contains might make you a vender of gold bricks, when if let alone you would never have thought of adopting that profession, The drink talk might inspire in you d thirst for real red liquor, when your own inclination would never have led you further than ginger ale or ice- “TLL BLOWS THE WIND THAT PROFITS NOBODY ” cream soda ; because her mother had stumbled. This makes the young lady PA Ee s ‘o imagine she is walking pigeontoed on the moral path. As of Mr. Thomas's heroine keeps in- she doesn’t scem 10 have much common sense her lack of ng lady that. she must mind her footsteps confidence leads to the complications in her social and busi ness career which give Mr. Thomas's psychical treatise its I percentage of dramatic value. The story of the play might easily have been told in three acts, but the author for good measure throws in an additional act, exploiting cer- tain well-known theories concerning the influence of colors ‘on temperament DP Gy 2? Mr. Thomas's psychical discoveries—for apparently to him they are discoveries—are always put by him in inter- esting form. In“ The Witching Hour’? they were in smaller proportion than in “The Harvest Moon,’ and by the s: proportion the former was a better play. In the present in stance, as in the other, he makes his audiences think they € thinking, which does not hurt them and makes them, cuite properly, hold his work in higher estimation, In almost cases nowadays this is a novel sensation for a Mr. Thomas is to be congratulated on his accomplishment even if his play docs not touch the emotions deeply There is hut one character in the play especially notable, all the rest being strictly conventional types. The Monsicur Vavin of Mr. George Nash is a real creation. Stage French- men we have had in battalions, but here is a French gentle- “MAMMA, CAN TGET ON YOUR LAP?" man of the intellectual type, polished, suave and at the same “ Kor NOW; SIT ON PAPA’S LAP time masterful. That he is accomplished detracts rot “CAN'T. HE'S GOT WIS TUMMY ON 17.7 from his manliness. It turns out that he is the real comicbooks.com