Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1901 — PLAYS TO PACKED HOUSES. [ARTICLE]

PLAYS TO PACKED HOUSES.

The rush of the Christmas shoppers does not interfere with the rush to see Jacob Litt’s production of “The Price of Peace” at McVicker’s Threatre, Chicago, where the great melodrama is packing the play house nil the time. It has been a long time since any play has drawn so many out-of-town patrons to trie theatre as has this fine example of the Drury Lane spectacle. And for the next two weeks, when many persons will visit Chicago to make their holiday purchases, there is a very large demand for seats for these people. Mailorders are pouring in to Mr. Litt’s office and every night the messenger of the theatre carries a big package of answered orders to the post office to mail. All this desire to see “'The Price of Peace” is deservedly given for nothing so splendid has ever been seen in Chicago or America. There is a fine company; an army of supernumeraries; scenery which for beauty and massiveness has not been equalled; costumes from the world’s greatest dress-makers, and a play which holds audiences with intensity that betokens the thrilling quality of the situations. Perhaps the great moment of the play, pictorially, occurs at the end of the second act wherein" the daughter of England’s Piime Minister is about to be married in Westminister abbey. The scene shows the transept of the great church, the sunlight dimly showing through the stained glass of the rose windows while over the door an opening lets in a broad stream of sunlight which falls on the altar and the processional of choir boys, priests and wedding party. The bride has just been made to believe that the man she is to marry is a villain and a coward and when she is called on for her answer she cries, “There will be no wedding! Father take me home!” This brings the act to a thrilling close.