g that is out of the
conventional rut succeeds at the start. There must be patience,
perseverance and a struggle. Otherwise life would be very easy, which
it is not. The rosy little scheme at the Berkeley Lyceum had attracted
considerable attention. Critics paid homage to every change of bill,
anxious to chronicle success, and looking with glad eyes at the
possible advent of a new impetus to the jaded theatrical machine. They
had worked themselves into the most appreciative state of mind. Lo,
and behold! After a few weeks, M. Antoine's American imitator
evaporated. Lack of funds!

What a dismal lack of those funds there must have been when the
enterprise started! Who but an actor would embark upon a scheme, and
project such radiant promises in the interests of those who are tired
of wallowing in the trough of vulgar "popularity," when it was
apparent that, without that popularity, the thing couldn't last more
than a month? Mr. Keenan should apologize to M. Antoine, of Paris. He
took his name in vain. People with new ideas, opposed to the
conventionality of the old ones, expect naturally to bide their time
before the public unhesitatingly accepts them. If Mr. Keenan had
engaged in his alluring pursuit, willing and even anxious to "lose
money" before he made it, a very different story would have been told.

People ask why dramatic chroniclers grow cynical. The answer is
simple. They feel that they are persistently "jollied" along, and they
assuredly are. It was so in the case of the Berkeley Lyceum plan that
fell through simply because money failed to pour into the box office,
and M. Antoine, of Paris, lacked the vitality of Barnum & Bailey's
circus! It was so last year when Mr. Sydney Rosenfeld tried to
"elevate" the stage with the Century Players. This is an age of
get-rich-quickly, and there is no other object. Actors talk of art,
and of unconventionality; they inveigh against commercialism and pose
most picturesquely. But they are in such a hurry to spear the florid,
bloated body of easy success that they cannot wait. Mr. Frank Keenan
went direct from M. Antoine's Parisian plan to vaudeville!

The little play upon which he relied to turn the tide of dollars in
his direction was called "A Passion in a Suburb," and was described as
"a psychological study of madness," by Algernon Boyesen. It was horror
for the sake of horror, which is always distressing, and it was a
failure. It was food neither for the elect nor for