Judge, 1923-05-05 · page 14 of 36
Judge — May 5, 1923 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Ralph Barton cartoon satirizes **Mrs. Fiske**, a prominent early 20th-century actress, performing in Lillian Barrett's play "The Dice of the Gods"—described as a "morphine play," suggesting it dealt with drug addiction. The satire's point: The caption notes that if drawn to scale with Mrs. Fiske, the other 21 cast members would be invisible. This mocks Mrs. Fiske's dominating stage presence and reputation for overshadowing her fellow actors. The cartoon visually exaggerates her theatrical grandeur in a Greenwich Village studio setting, emphasizing how she commanded attention and seemingly dwarfed ensemble casts. The title's wordplay—"While There's Fiske, There's Hope"—plays on the common phrase "while there's life, there's hope," suggesting her star power was the production's only saving grace.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
While There’s Fiske, There’s Hope—By Ralph Barton Mrs. Fiske tidying up the Greenwich Village studio in “The Dice of the Gods,’ a morphine play by Lillian Barrett. Drawn to the same scale, the twenty-one other members of Mrs. Fiske’s cast would be invisible to the naked eye. 12