Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 111, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1913 — PLAYS TO PORTRAY WORK OF MISSIONS [ARTICLE]

PLAYS TO PORTRAY WORK OF MISSIONS

Dramatic Instinct to Be Utilized in “World in Chicago.” ALL CHURCHES PARTICIPATE Feature of Great Exposition Which Opens May 3, In Chicago, to Be a "Missionary-Play Hall.” One of the many splendid features of The World in Chicago,, which from May 3rd until June 7th will occupy the Chicago Coliseum and Annex and the big Auditorium theater, the largest amusement palace in that city, will be a series of dramatic plays and playlets, all with a moral carrying out the main idea of the gigantic exposition, which is to vividly portray to the citizens of the country the advancement of Christian civilization throughout the world. These plays, tableaux and pictures of strange adventures in foreign lands, will be staged in what will, be known as Missionary-Play hall, in the Coliseum. They are to be under the direction of Mrs. Vera Jane Edwards, a Chicago woman of great ability who has had much experience in training young people for affairs of this nature. One of the more elaborate plays is entitled “The Pilgrimage,” an Arabian play, while another is “Two Thousand Miles for a Book." The scene of “The Pilgrimage” is laid at Jiddah, the port of Mecca, at the time when the whole Moslem world makes its annual pilgrimage to the tomb of Mohammed. The populace becomes aroused over the conversion to Christianity of a number of natives, especially that of a young Mohammedan student of high caste, 1 which is the work of missionaries who have been working in Jiddah. The missionaries are threatened by> the natives and the various perilous positions through which they pass are strikingly depicted. The wonderful longing for “The' White Man’s Book of Heaven” is demonstrated in "Two Thousand Miles for a Book,” an Indian play. Ini this an incident which occurred in 1838, when a band of Indians journeyed from the Oregon country to St. Louis to secure “The Book,” which long before had been promised them by white men who had passed their way. i A number of short plays will also be given all along the same general lines and all pointing out thr moral t desired. •