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JANUARY 22, 1821 The Bi Ilboard 19 _ NEW PLAYS BROCK PEMBERTON Presonts ZONA GALE'S “MISS LULU BETT”. ‘A Comedy of Manners From Her Own ‘Novel of That Title. Staged by ‘Mr. Pemberton Carroll McComas, Jack Bohn, Loulse Closser Hale, Beth Varden, Willard Robertson, Brigham . Royce, Lois Shore, William: Holden, Catherine Calhoun Doucet. 1 bave not read “Miss Lulu. Bett.” 1 do not know whether it is good, bad ‘or indifferent, but after watching the play of the same name I think I will’ read it There 1s so much that is really human in what is not really a play at all, so much certain character ‘etching, and such accurate small town photography that the book must be well worth knowing. It is as a play, ‘however, that “Miss Lulu Bett” is being given, and by its merits as of drama it must be.judged. ‘There is no drama in it. It is merely a string of episodes with a casual element of excltement in them ‘to give ‘tonic to the whole. Of the flerce clash of personalities, situations and {deas the offer~ ing at the Belmont Theater has noth~ ingIt raises langhs, sympathy, mild interest and gentle satisfaction, but it has neither statie‘nor dynamic energy. The tragedy in the life of the family drudge thru her hasty marriage is clearly enough suggested, but it is not hammered out into the audience. There are two kinds of quiet, one that indicates raging femotion restrained 4nd the other, the hookworm variety. “Miss Lulu Bett,” as a. play, ts de~ adedly hookwormy. But it is played by a cast that is the most completely edequate I have seen in New-York this season, -For a long time a lot of people knew that Carroll McComas had fine stuff im her, but ike many another girl of ‘the theater her chance failed to come around. Chance -has a lot to do with’ success on the stage no matter what anyone may say, chance and a lot of other things. “Miss McComas’ opportunity arrived and she has made good ‘with a smash. Nothing sensational, mind you, but a solid success due to a knowledge‘ of simple acting—which 4s different from acting “simply”—a searching personality, a mobile. face, ‘& beauty so sure of its quality it fears. poftoning such a “Ma” instantly upon reaching the age of reason. Jack Bohn ‘makes a natural and boyish sweetheart who cannot tell a le even to elope with Dwight’s daughter Diana, played naturally and well by Beth ‘Varden. One of the best characterizations is given by Willard Robertson as the young man who cannot make his “pafpiano” store behave, but has the soul. of a gentle, dependable, un‘obtrusive man. That is what Mr. Robertson: makes him appear, and while only a minor part he stands out as ‘with positive sincerity and solid dig> nity. Brigham Royce.ts very good as ‘Miss Lulu’s on-and-off husband, but I did not like Loulse Closer Hale's impersonation of Mrs. Bett, It has good spots but lacks definite characterization and not infrequently. has moments dangerously near burlesque. Her cackling laugh should come out. at once. It does-not fit at all, Last, but not least, is little Lois Shore, as Monona Deacon. I loved her for her simplicity and her -utter absence of stage childishness, which I loathe. I may know nothing about the drama, Jess about acting, but I know a Jot about “kids” Lois Shore is a real “kid,” God bless her. If she ever Srows up to be an affected, impossible leading lady T'll hate her. As it is now’I present her a metaphorical thug and an honest wish for her very happy and prosperous, future —PAT‘TERSON JAMES. z e PRESS COMMENT ‘Miss McComas and the cast praised. Kindly criticism for the ‘play on the strength of the book from which it was made. ° ‘THE PROVINCETOWN PLAYERS: Under the Direction of George Cram ‘Cook and James Light “DIFF*RENT” A Play in Two Acts, by Engene G. O'Neill : THE CAST: | James Light, Mary Blair, Eugene Lin_soln, H. B. Tisdale, Alice Rostetter, ‘Elizabeth Brown, Iden Thompson and Charles Ellis. It is a pretty good play that execra~ ble acting can not ruin It is a high tribute to a playmaker’s powers of insight and gifts of expression that he can turn out a product which can hold you fascinated while all the time you not to be covered by a drudge’s make-. 8Fe alternately groaning, raging and ‘up, and a distinct, pleasant and articu~ late voice.” She convéys across the ‘tootlights @ feeling of internal distress, ©f hope, of pleasure, of anxiety, of. worry and of gentle sympattiy by ‘means of that -long-neglected feature of the human face, the mouth. Miss ‘McComas evidently realizes ‘that the mouth is eomething besides a stoke hole for food and an opening to emit inarticulate stage talk. If she can restore the use of the mouth to'its proper Place is @ medium of expression she has put the whole American theater im her debt. head : ‘William Holden, as the fresh water dosher, who bludgeong everything fine Snd beautiful and human into a. hamburger steak with his elephantine humor, is 6o perfect that it was with the utmost exercise of manly. restraint that I refrained from going out Into the street in search of a half brick to heave at him. “Mr. Holdeh is the very absolute content ‘of the Chamber of Commerce idea. His Dwight Herbert ie @ Chamber of Commerce on two legs. Catherine’ Calhoun Doucet is the sweety sweet matron, Ina Deacon, who has brought two children into the world and: succeeded in raising them.' ‘That is a boost for Ina and & rap for the children. Any normal child would be ‘perfectly. justified in Inughing at the people who are playing it. That is the kind of a play Eugene OWeir's “Diffrent”. is. Never in my life have I been so impotently enraged as when I saw this fine, vigorous;. perfectly drawn, developed and sustaired-drama-of a New England seaport “village ‘kicked tn the. face, dragged ‘by ‘thé hair’and ‘torn limb from Iimb’as It is at the Provincetown Playhouse. How people can ‘stand back ‘of the footlights and.act so brutally, T can not imagine. If any real actor could give such an exhibition of ‘in paint with whicli she distorts concealed under a bodily carriage that is so awkward it is almost burlesque, there is af understanding of what the character means. You writhe under her inability to get out what is obviously struggling inside her for. expression, and you squirm’ when it stays inside her. She knows what she should do and can not do it. It is exactly like watching a mute try to speak, a terrible sensation for the mute and for the other person. One thing she has in her range of actualities. She has the finest, most bloodcurdling screech I have ever heard. No‘ woman who can do that is totally bereft of dramatic feeling. "The. man-in on the bench behind mo all but fell off his seat, and everyone in the little house jumped at least six inches in’ the air, Elizabeth Brown was not bad fn‘elther of her dual ‘roles, and Charles Ellis, ‘with the exception of one or two. instances, was very good, but the reat is complete silence. .BE oe Of the play itself much can be written... Anything Mr. O'Neill does demands consideration, because in whatever ‘he turns out there runs the red blood of réal life, the steady beat of a human pulse and the exact penetration of the souls of the characters with which he deals. Emma Crosby is to be married to Captain Caleb Williams, the skipper of a whaling vessel: © Sh loves him, because he is unlike the ‘animal human of her seaport bome, her gross, vulgar brother and her unpleasantly human father... He -is her: ideal, ther Chevalier Sans Reproche. He is different. ‘Then she learns that on one of his. voyages, forced to put into a South Sea. Island bay for ‘water, he ‘has fallen (under the spell of the moon, the softness of the sky and the perfume of the flowers) for ah insistent consideration that it is his solitary offense, that In’ comparison to the deDauchery of his crew, from which he has held himself apart,. Caleb's conduct is immactlate, nor that the very prominence given the episode by crew and ‘villagers is an indication that he is as different as she thought. She remains deaf to the arguments of her mother, her father, her brother, Caleb's sister and her sweetheart, who is the village squire of dames. They all chant, one after the other: “He is only a man. They're all Uke that” ‘The marriage is broken off, and Caleb leaves, saying he'll wait thirty years for her to change her mind. . ‘The years slip by and Emma is left alone. Back to the village comes Benny Rogers, the rotten son of his rotten father, who was the village squire of dames. He is a typical “regular army bum,” blackguard of the completest sort, @ cheat, a Har and all the rest of it. Emma, in her old maidenly isolation, becomes his prey. He borrows money from her. She paints her face, puts on ‘high-heeled shoes, buys & phonograph and jazz ‘records, and makes an ass of herself generally. Finally Benny's’ mother tells him he has run his rope,,that she is going to drive him out of the house and tell Caleb of what he has been doing to Emma. True to type, Benny determines to get even with everyone involved in the collapse of bis schemes. He coaxes Emma into agreeing to marry him, and makes her tell Caleb when he returns. The heartsickened Captain leaves in a fury of anger, contempt, disillusionment and the knowledge he has spent the best, years of his life waiting for a woman that is not worth it. Then Benny breaks the news to Emma, with all the delicacy of Babe Ruth clouting a baseball, that he was only “kiddin’ an.olé hen like her,” and leaves her an instant, only. to return to break the news that Caleb has hanged himself, Her world has gone to pieces, and, with the screech mentioned earlier in this re view, Emma, goes out to follow Caleb's, example. A savage, true, brutal story, told without faltering, with speed, culmination and climax. The pity of it is: that it had to be squandered on MacDougal’s Greenwich Village, and that ‘there is no one in the cast to do it real Play praised, but held not 20 remarkable as the author's “Beyond the Horizon.” . aS ‘MAX R. WILNER and S. ROMBERG Present a New Play in Three Acts, Entitled “PAGANS” By Charles Anthony. Staged by Bertram Harrison ‘THE CAST: ‘Harold Vermilye, Frederick Burt, David Glassford, Regina Wallace, Alice Fischer, Helen Ware, Jos. Shildkraut. Hypothetical question by Counsel for the Defense: “It you were @ painter, accustomed to getting artistic inspirations by walking in the Bols de Boulogne and being greeted in the dawn’s early light by peach of a prima, donna, who had been ‘sé up in business by a millionaire garter mamufacturer—sex of garter un. unknown—and then you got shell shocked and gassed and the Lord knows what not during the war, and then, on top of all that, you married a ‘wife with a magpie tongue, who had a mother with six-cylinder gab engines, pnd you had attacks of angina pectoris, and a man servant who used to be your orderly when you were captain and sald man servant loved the service so much he used to go up on the roof and ‘bugle calls, and your wife and motherin-law came in and caught you inno declares, ‘Ifyou lost both your you'd paint with the -bra teeth,’ so, if you could: paint brush in your teeth, why not Tegs—and your wife mother-in-law talked, arms your thoge ladies. who prefer the Ophelia route and drown themselves in tears of thelr own shedding. A woman with @ baritone voice in front of me cried every scrap of mascara off her eyelids and eyebrows when it became evident that old Angina Pec was going to get Richard in the finish. A man in the same row, whose mouth reminded me of the snapping turtles of my boyhood, also wept. You ‘ave written SOME PLAY. when it will make a snapping turtle-mouthed man ery. Icried. And X have uo snapping turtle’s mouth. I wept for an evening utterly and completely lost, and for such a waste of good playing talent in the cast. I have never seen’ @ play in which all the characters were 80 thankless. “No wonder Doctor Gregory let his patient die to set it over with. Mr. Schildkraut is an exotic type and his gifts are displayed im the one tense moment of the play when he recovers the use of his legs Just a8 you believe he ts on the last of them. That bit was managed with good technical skill and indicates that he has possibilities, But “Pagans” ‘would kill any actor. Mr. Schildkraut should have another chance. Helen ‘Ware was the prima donna with the garter king past. She is a most capable artist and gave the only impression of. vitality that appeared in the tomb of unnaturalness the play creates interment. Regina Wallot out of a magpie wife lace mad and in the “woman against woman” scene in the last act played with sincerity and effectiveness. Alice Fisher is the mother-in-law and the widow {Coatinzed on page 21)