Life, 1890-02-13 · page 12 of 18
Life — February 13, 1890 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Senator Crane" - Life Magazine Theater Review This page reviews a play starring actor **William H. Crane**, who portrays a character named Senator Hannibal Rivers. Life's critic makes a clever point: Crane is essentially playing himself—the character is so authentically based on Crane's own robust American personality that there's little distinction between actor and role. The review celebrates the play as genuinely American entertainment, featuring American actors, scenes, and money staying in American pockets. This was notable because foreign talent then dominated American stages. The critic praises Senator Hannibal Rivers as representing an idealized, "primeval American gentleman"—a disappearing type embodying American adaptability and masculinity. However, he criticizes Mrs. Hilary (played by Georgie Drew Barrymore) as a loud, coarse American widow stereotype, arguing that such rudeness in women cannot be redeemed by kindness, as it might be in men. The sidebar cartoon about "carriage company" is a separate domestic joke about courtship propriety.
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sarily SENATOR CRANE. jig is grateful and refreshing to behold a purely American play, dealing with American scenes and people and acted by Ameri- can actors, putting American dollars into American pockets. O put the financial aspect of Senator Crane’s success ahead of the artistic is also American, but the fact is so excep- tional that it should be given prominence as an encour- agement to those Americans who were coming to believe that only foreign talent could secure financial or other recognition in America. There is, however, a mistake in the playbill. It states that Mr. William H. Crane enacts the part of Senator Hannibal Rivers. The truth is that Mr. William H. Crane enacts the part of Senator William H. Crane. If actual senatorial honors should be thrust upon Mr. Crane we should have just such a senator as the one to whom the playwright has given the name of Hannibal Rivers. His own Americanism is of such a robust type that the playwrights have done well in removing the leading character of the play so little from the actual man who was to play it. Granting for the sake of argument that we are discussing Senator Hannibal Rivers and not Senator Crane, both actor and dramatists are to be congratu- lated for preserving on the stage, to be handed down to posterity, one of the best types of American life. It is a type which is rapidly becoming obso- "GIVE THREE RINGS, TILLIE, AND SHE'LL KNOW SHE'S GOT CARRIAGE COMPANY !" Mrs, Hobson: WELL, JAMES, WE CAN REST ASSURED THAT MARY AND HER FELLOW ARE NOT DOING ANY SILLY COURTING DOWN- STAIRS; THAT PIANO HAS BEEN GOIXG EVER SINCE WE CAME TO BED. lete. It is a type of purely American origin, developed by the circumstances of the country’s growth, and one of which no American need be ashamed. The humorous side of the American nature makes this character lend itself easily to the requirements of comedy. Senator Hannibal Rivers is the primeval Ameri- can gentleman. He is a masculine man, and possesses that American adaptability which fits his strong personality to any circumstances in which he finds himself. Another American type is that of Afrs. Hilary, created by Mrs. Georgie Drew Barrymore. It is drawn considerably further from nature than that of Senator Rivers, and it is one we would sooner see disappear from American life. Ina man, goodness of heart may make up for a lack of refinement. In a woman, no amount of kindliness can atone for coarseness. The loud, bouncing widow, with her heart on her sleeve and an ex- ecutive ability only to be found in some American women, is excellently portrayed by Mrs. Barrymore and provides a good foil for Mr. Crane’s work, The other members of the company are not quite 4 awd Wal . = =~ comicbooks.com