Life — March 19, 1891 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A COLD DAY. NCE when it was cold and bluff, Cupid hid in Mabel’s muff. “*Mabel's little hands,” quoth he, ‘*Warm as any nest will be, Here I'll stay and take mine ease.” On a sudden came a squeeze— Startled, Love exclaimed, ‘‘ What's this? “Surely something is amiss!" Looked at Mabel’s hands to see What the matter was—'' Dear me! “Do mine eyes deceive? or can “One of Mabel’s gloves be tan? “And the other gray ?—that's odd, “* Both right hands, as I'm a god? ‘* Mabel! Mabel! havea care! “Two right hands don’t make a pair. “TIL be off,” quoth Love, ‘its clear “Tam little needed here. ‘* Bitter though the March wind be, “ This is muck too warm for me!" 0. Herford. SSE MANAGER: In this act you drink two bottles of mock cham- pagne. Actor: I think I could play that better if you'd substitute two bottles of real beer. THEATRICAL TERMS, “TORMENTORS.” THE TESTING OF IBSEN. “TL HERE seems to be no imminent danger of Ibsen's plays monopolizing the American stage, At the Lyceum Theatre we have just had a trial trip, at_a matinée, the result showing that “ The Pillars of Society” is no more playable than “A Doll’s House.” The piece was acted by a good company, and all the accessories were such as to give its dramatic possibilities a very fair test indeed. But if Ibsen is dull in the reading, he is absolutely dreary in the acting. The play is realistic in the extreme, but the realism is confined to such petty and trivial things that it fails to interest. The sermonizing scattered through the play, and on which it depends for its literary value, only adds to the general desolation. A few public performances of Ibsen's works would fatally puncture one of the most absurd fads of the day. . . . J is easy to understand how “Devant l'Ennemi" now given at the Garden Theatre as “Love and War,” should have had a successful run in Paris. As a war drama, written by a skillful French- man for the benefit of his sensitive and patriotic coun- trymen, it is undoubtedly a brilliant victory. Translated into English and rendered by an American company, it is only natural that a certain per cent. of the original flavor should evaporate, but it re- mains nevertheless an excep- tionally clever play, pictur- esque, rapid in action, and interesting to the last. Moreover, it is a sim- ple, wholesome story. The second act is laid at an outpost of the French line of battle be- tween Thionville and Woerth, where a striking effect is produced by the reproduction of one of de Neuville’s familiar scenes. Mrs. Arthur Dacre as Madame Bernard is the most impressive figure in the piece. This lady is a thorough artist, and possesses the happy faculty of apparently forgetting herself and the audi- ence in the assumption of a character, In the third act when she exhorts her husband to save his son at the expense of his conscience, she rises to a level not comicbooks.com