Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1903 — A Play Within a Play. [ARTICLE]

A Play Within a Play.

A play within a play. This sounds rather odd, rather jobsenidh in fact, though it is not; on the contrary, it is a good, wholesome, humorous story of American life, and without a single weird situation or enigmatic line. To satisfactorily explain one must tell the story of the play. An actor who had taken to drink, on account of the opposition made to him by the par ents of his fiance, goes to the bad, is no longer able to hold an engagement, and eventually becomes a tramp. One day he drifts into a little Indiana town, on the front end of a passenger train. Further back, but on the inside of the coaches there is a small theatrical company. Tramp and company get off at the same town, the latter from cboioe, the former by the aid of the brakeraan’s boot. The company is billed to play in the town a week. The second night of the engagement the leading man is called home by the death of his wife; there is no one to fill his place and consternation reigns in the little band of actors and actresses; finally it is learned that the tramp has been an actor, and furthermore has played the leading part of the “Two Orphans” with Kate Olaxton. This is the play they are to put on this night. The tramp plays the part, meets the leading woman of the coppany, his former sweetheart. The complications that arise form the ground work to the plot of the greatest scenic comedy drama of recent years, Elmer Walters' “A Millionaire Tramp.” The third act shows not alone the exterior of a country theatre, but the interior as well with the audience seated, curtain up and performance in progress, and the effect has never been accomplished heretofore.—At the opera house tonight.