In all his career as a producer of plays Sir Henry Irving has signed but one contract requiring him to place upon the stage a play not written at the time he affixed his signature to the binding document. He would have been spared a disheartening disaster had he never signed that one, for the play he was in consequence forced to present was “The Medicine Man.” The piece was produced at the Lyceum Theater on May 4, 1898, and its failure was prompt and decisive. The authors were men of literary standing, H. D. Traill and Robert Hichens, and it is admitted that this fact led the actor to pledge himself to accept and to perform any play which they should write.