Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1903 — A Play Within a Play. [ARTICLE]

A Play Within a Play.

“A play within a play,” this sounds odd, though it is not; on the contrary, it is a good, wholesome, hnmorousstory of American life and without a single weird situation or enigmatio line. To satisfactorily explain one must toil the Story of the play. An actor who had taken to drink on account of the opposition made to him by the parents of his fiancee -goes to the bad-is no longer able to hold an engagement and eventually beoomea a tramp. One day he drifts into a little Indiana town on the front end of a passenger train; farther baok, but on the inaide of the ooaohes, there is a small theatrical company, tramp and company get off at the same town, the latter from choice, the former by the aid of the brakeman’s boot. The company is billed to play in the town a week. The aeoond night of the engagement the leadman "is called home by the death of his wife; there is no one to fill his plaoe and oonaternation reigna in the little band of actors and actresses; finally it is learned that the tramp has been an aotor, and furthermore has played the lead in the "Two Orphans” with Kate Claxton, This is the play they are to pat on this night; the tramp plays the part, meets -the loading woman of the company, his former sweetheart. The complications that arise form the ground work to the plot of the greatest soenio drama of recent years, Elmer Walters’s "A Millionaire Tramp.” The third aot shows not alone the exterior of a country theatre, bat the interior as well with the audience seated, ourtain up and the play in progress, an effeot that haa never been accomplished heretofore. Opera house Thursdiy, January Bth.