Evening star. [volume], January 15, 1911, Page 13, Image 38

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
to-morrow before eleven o'clock," I tells
him.
He hung on my neck for joy when I ut
tered them words. "What's your dope?"
he asks me.
"Are you willin' to stop a runaway don
key if it'll save the life of your future mother
in law?" I asks him.
"Not on your life!" says he. "But if
savin' the life of my future mother in law
by stopping a runaway donkey will give me
Aileen," says he, "I'm your man!" says he.
"All right," I says. "You be walkin'
along Main-st. about five minutes after eight
to-morrow mornin' an' stop the first run
away donkey you see. I'll do the rest."
You see, Mumsy and Aileen were booked
for a donkey ride at eight o'clock, an'
Mumsy was stuck on a donkey called Dick
Croker an' didn't ride any other at Assuan.
I handed the donkey boy who took care of
Dick a ten-spot to let me give the brute a
dmg that would make him wild. I fixed it
to give him the dope just before he left the
stable.
VTT'ELL. Son. it all worked to the tick of
the clock. The next momin', when
Mumsy mounted Dick, he leaped for joy an'
set off at a flying pace from the Cataract
vard. sendin' his boy spinnin' and frighten
in' six years' growth out of all concerned.
He was good an' gay, an' down the hill he
galloped, making the trees look like the
teeth in a comb. I hurried across lots over
the hill down into the main street of Assuan
just in time to see Dick go tearin' down the
street. Mumsy was hangin' on for dear life.
She'd lost her hat. Her hair was streamin',
her skirts was blowin', an' Dick Croker was
goin' for all he was worth, when suddenly a
little sawed-off runt of a man saw what was
up an' as quick as chain lightnin' he runs
towards the boltin' donkey, grabs the reins,
and ties his feet in a knot around Dick's
neck. Deck stopped in his own length, he
was so surprised.
Poor Mumsy was very near all in an'
scared almost to death. An' when she saw
that the man who had saved her was Bunny,
she grabbed him round the neck an' kissed
him like a long lost son.
"There!" says she. "I'll not object to
you and Aileen any more. Now I'm satis
fied, and if Aileen is willing you may get
married right away."
So she an' Bunny starts back to the Cat
aract an' meets me?an' I sees by Bunny's
smile that my ruse has worked as sure as a
Black Hand bomb. Bunny invites me to
witness the splicin' up at the Cataract, an'
they were made one forever an' ever.
Mumsy came over to them kids hand
somely. She gave 'em five thousand dol
lars for honeymoon expenses, an' ordered
an automobile for them, an' besides gave
Aileen the dough for a mansion in Cairo.
When all this was over they started on their
honeymoon.
"Where are you goin'?" says I.
"Back to the moonbeams of Karnak,"
savs thev.
Antonio Parisi, Extemporaneous Dramatist
By George Jean Nathan
COME years ago Oscar Hammsrstein
^ gained ? columns of notoriety through
having written a musical comedy in twenty
four hours. The feat was accomplished as
the result of a wager, the product having
been given the title of "The Koh-i-Noor."
Within the last year Paul Armstrong in
similar fashion gained considerable press
chronicle by completing the dramatization
of a short detective story in four days. Both
of these playwriting records have been re
garded as unique and unassailable?until
now. For. in New York city, there has come
to light a dramatist who makes up his plays
while his audiences wait; who, moreover,
extemporaneously presents a different play
every week night in the year, and finally in
vests those plays with a certain element of
historical accuracy that forbids their being
dismissed with doubting sneer.
This extemporaneous dramatist is An
tonio Parisi, owner, operator, and dramatist
in chief of the Sicilian Marionette Theater, a
little playhouse on East llth-st.. New York,
which boasts a clientele of more regular at
tendants than probably any other theater
in the United States. This clientele is com
posed nine-tenths of Sicilians, who visit the
theater almost every night to watch the
completion of a cycle of drama that takes
exactly a year to run its course.
Under the manipulations of Parisi and an
assistant, and to the words of the dramas
from Parisi's mind and mouth, the marion
ettes night in and night out for a year enact
the story of "The Paladins of France." The
cycle starts anew on the first of January of
each year with the death of Charlemagne,
and one dramatic chapter is presented each
night. Parisi has made a deep and careful
study of the Carolingian legend and has
read widely in literature of the period in
which his dramas ar * laid.
Just previous to the beginning of a per
formance by his puppet actors, the drama
tist reads that part of the long story that is
due for presentation the evening in question.
When the curtain rises, he begins his play
extemporaneously, and thus, with an inborn
knowledge of climax building, he drives his
drama in a telling manner to its conclusion.
He never hesitates. He never mumbles his
words or seeks a phrase vainly. Under his
improvising hand, his puppets work their
way to the denouement and thence to the
curtain which carries a sequel with it.
Although the theater has been in existence
for several years, and although the Paladin
cycle has been presented twice, it is a matter
for record that in each presentation the im
provised dramas differed radically in ex
ploitation; although, to be sure, the final
evolution was the same.
The best judgment of the comparative
merit of Parisi's extemporaneous plays may
be had from the way in which the Sicilian
audiences greet them. These people cheer
and laugh and cry during the dramas just as
if they were being affected, like their Ameri
can brothers and sisters, by living actors and
finished plays on Broadway. It is no un
common sight to see women break down and
weep during one of Parisi's improvised pres
entations, and nightly laughter may be
heard mingling with loud Silician bravos.
Parisi is a great believer in red and ram
pant melodrama. "Melodrama," he says,
"is the playwright's surest key to an audi
ence's heart." Accordingly, he makes up
his dramas as he goes along in a high pitch
of dramatic tension. In other words, Parisi
is a "blood and thunder" dramatist. To
this, as well as to the fact that an audience
appreciates dramatic situations a hundred
per cent, more than it does mere talk, does
he attribute his success. "I work up my
play for the evening from a quiet note to
one that strikes loud and long, and I carry
my hearers with me," he explains.
Although Antonio Parisi knows little
about dramatic construction, i. e., dramatic
construction as it is viewed by his English
speaking contemporaries, he seems to have
a knack of infusing into his improvised plays
a quality that wins his auditors. Perhaps
this quality is crescendo treatment, perhaps
it consists of dramatic rapidity that flirts
with constructive logic. At any rate, it
gains its point and thus accomplishes what
it sets out to accomplish.
Parisi uses about five hundred marion
ettes to enact his cycle of plays, although
obviously, only a small proportion of them
occupy the stage at one time. He usually
begins his drama for the evening by a mono
logue delivered through one of the puppets
representing a historical character in the
particular part of the tale to be unfolded.
The cast of characters for the evening, inci
dentally, is selected half an hour before the
time scheduled for the curtain to rise and, in
lieu of a printed program, Parisi announces
the dramatis personae subsequently from the
stage. Following the monologue, in which a
suggestion of the plot is revealed, Parisi
brings forth a second puppet character, and
the drama quickly gets under way. Duels
follow love scenes and battle scenes follow
plotting in rapid order. In these battle
scenes Parisi reveals himself at his best. He
succeeds in investing them with sufficient
realism, from the marionette viewpoint, to
bring his audiences to their feet in excite
ment. Possessing a voice of much variety,
Parisi is, moreover, able to improvise his
love scenes as tenderly as, in an opposite
way, he improvises his battle scenes.
In each of Parisi's historical dramas, he
relies chiefly on five characters to further
his action. These, however, are supple
mented by at least thirty of lesser signifi
cance. Roughly speaking, the five may be
graded as follows: Hero, heroine, friend of
hero, villain, and assistant villain. These
characterizations are the writer's. Parisi
would frown at such an unhistorical cate
goric treatment of his dramatis personae.
Nevertheless, flippant or skeptic though
those who have not visited his playhouse
may be, the fact remains that Parisi is prob
ably the only dramatist in America who im
provises a different drama every night in the
year and by his extemporaneous plays makes
large audiences weep and laugh in a manner
that might make Broadway's plodding
dramatists jealous.
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