THE RETURN OF MELODRAMA.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 972, 12 November 1910, Page 11

THE RETURN OF MELODRAMA.

A FAITHFUL PUBLIC, There came a time a few years since when people said melodrama was played. out; that it could no longer play an audience in. A number-of adequate explanations were given (writes Pott Ridge in an English paper). We had become too finely educated to enjoy its extravagances; the trend of. dramatic art was in a higher direction; some declared that a Norwegian writer had drowned it with the contents of his inkstand; new • rules of no soliloquies, no overbearing, no postal deliveries, no asides had made it impossible _ that melodrama should ever again be m the running. And here it is, after a, temporary rest, as lively and strong as

ever witli -Fate indulging in the old sports: -folk murdered in first acts, and the. police force instantly apprehending the. nearest innocent person and conveying him—thus avoiding middlemen's profits—direct to penal servitude, where no discovers in the governor of the prison an old rival for the hand of Rose Mayfield; a ■ kind-hearted' but fatuousheaded warder earns applause by assisting tho prisoner to escape by boat; a firo at sea, an earthquake on land, and no luck at all for tho poor youth until five minutes to eleven. J What the audience likes in melodrama is .that, provided they have evaded the reading of press .notices, there come situations of perplexity wherein the way out is not to them obvious. .Prepared fortlie unexpected, they find a solution offered ■that.-never-''occurred to them, and they join in the amazement without sharing the disappointment of the evil person' of the- play. I remember once being greatly' 'affected at ■(I think) the Elephant and Castle Theatre by the perils of a young woman'who, in a room at tho top of a house that. occupied one half of the stage, had barred and locked the door against an intrusive person; he began to' smash in the panels of tho' ,door, and I could sea no for hope. Suddenly the young woman opened a small window that looked out well above roofs of other houses, and, with a cry of "Thank . Heaven, I was brought up a wire walker!"- (a fact not previously mentioned), stepped neatly, with tho aid of a balancing pole, across the telegraph lines into safety,-leaving tho features of -.tho villain, distorted with rage, at the opening. Melodrama is indebted to its well,behaved ancj decently conducted people, but it owes more to-those who make no attempt to walk in the straight, narrow, ways; it has to be grateful for the fact that the audience is up of detfiure and sedate men and women. For it is these who enjoy'to the full the' looking on at serious lapses from good behaviour. Tho universal nature of tho appeal made by melodrama has become evident to me when I have seen ■burglars of my acquaintance sharing the interest experienced by those who respect laws, starting and directing the applause when a villain is interrupted in thg very act of blowing up the lock of an iron safe. With, such a, combination of support, melodrama can scarcely do anything but continue to flourish. ~ ,