THE MODERN STAGE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIV, Issue 10825, 10 December 1895, Page 6

THE MODERN STAGE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —As one who recognises the power the Stage may have in moulding public opinion, I would champion the plea that its powers be exercised for good, and not for evil. To point my case I will instance a play lately staged in onr theatre. The Case of Rebellious Susan. The author portrays four women, types of their sex. The first, a beautiful woman, plastic in mind, capable of development, spiritually and intellectually, but weak in that she is dependent for her happiness upon another’s bounty. The outcome of her storm and stress is a iormal truce with laisser-faire.

from which ensues degradation, whence her soul can never rise. Hope has fled to return no more. But we are to laugh, at least the author says so. The second woman is beautiful and cynical (alas the irony of such a combination), seared by the world’s fierce fires. What to her mean love and purity ? Her heart would break could she but think on them. The type is true, but we must laugh, perforce., The third, the admired and respected society dame, is the saddest type of all. What else but this world’s goods is there in life for such as she ? But let us laugh, for is there aught besides ? And what is the welcome to their sphere of these three? The author writes down happy but cruel, mocking laughter, smothered in the presence of the prey or changed to covert sneers of flattery! But their fate, forsooth, we must admire. The fourth is young, energetic, selfish, sympathetic.' Untrained, uncurbed, she will rule others ere she can rule herself. For her, disaster, too. But in her wreck the sweet repose of evil-doers is disturbed, and she alone of all stands out as meriting reprobation. To her is dictated the lesson of the play, that women are the sport and toy of cruel Nature, upon whom she expends her malice. Men do but act the part of Nature’s tools. And what of the ideal men ? They find their pleasures at the cost of others’ pain, all libertines ; faithless, cruel-hearted, all. If to such men the desire of women turns, then woe to the world. The play is called a comedy, in reality it is a tragedy. It represents the apotheosis of materialism. The scene is laid with wealth and ostentation for its setting, for heartless as lie is the writer would not to outpicture his ideal, and to deduce therefrom his gospel, with ghastly poverty as foil. That is reserved for cruelty yet to bo evolved.—l am, &c., COTHURNUS NON SOCCUS.