“A FOOL THERE WAS.”

Otago Witness, Issue 3016, 3 January 1912, Page 69

“A FOOL THERE WAS.”

ESSAY COMPETITION. 'in connection with the Vampire Play, “A Fool There Was,” the management oi Clark ami Meynell’s Company olteied a trophy to tho value of £5 bs tor the best essay of not more than 600 words on the play and its motif (not a criticism of the play Oir players). In all 218 essays were received, tho winner being Air J. k ■ kitzgerald, Princess sitreet, North Dunedin, whose work ran into some 484 words. The attempts of Mr Edward J. St. I.cger and Miss Kate Oakden were highly commended. The following is like winning essay “It is a difficult task to say anything startling or original about a theme as ancient as that put forward in Porter Emerson Crown's drama, A Fool Ihciie Was.” The first ‘ Fool There Was ’ was no less a person than our common progenitor Adam, and he has set the fashion for his sex, in addition to being the father of ‘ all fools.’ If we cbuld read between the lines of the Book of Genesis, wo should probably find that the so-called serpent was in reality some very charming lady. There is no getting away from the fact that man’s moral nature is proportionately weaker than woman’s, in as much that man docs not always wish to resist temptation, whereas the woman’s greatest asset is her honour. If w© arc to learn a lesson from this play, we must not look too closely into tho theme, the opposition of virtue and vice, and the dancing of the puppet characters on their moral and immoral strings; wc must quite dispassionately and reasonably aver that there is 'such a thing as destiny. We must admit that the scheme of humanity is fatalistic, and that which tho gods decree will conic to pass. It is futile and absurd to sit in judgment on men of the John Schyier type. Wo know that John Schylor’s exist over and over again; we also know that when that strongest temptation of all, lust of tho flesh, comes along, he will succumb. A play such as ‘ A Fool There Was ’ deals with a phase, of life that is happening every minute, and in all lands. We do not openly admit it, but nevertheless wo know that it is true, and before our eyes possibly, and (even may be) probaldy in our own individual case. ‘‘The author that shows human life as it is (and always will be), as Porter Emerson Brown does in this play of ‘ A Fool There Was,’ will invariably court criticism. adverse and complimentary, but Porter Emerson Brown, while showing the degraded and sordid side of thus phase of life, has at the same time shown 1 hat tho love, the one undying flame through all tho ages, however weakened, however lulled to sleep by the baser passions, must, in the end. be aroused by a good woman’s touch, and ris-> triumphant and shake off the chains that hind those that Tall a victim to such a woman as the Vampire. Surely, a plav with this ultimate end in view must lend fo good. If we are to look for a moral in this olav, and if there is a lesson to ho loomed, it. is that love ‘ the immortal spark ’ in all eood women, is the saving grace that can lift the degraded and fallen (no matter to what depths of moralitv and sin they may have fallen, and point with loving arms to a higher and purer life.”