Life — March 22, 1894 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

A MODERN FARCE. 0 Gate particular importance of the production of “Love's Extract,” at the Fifth Avenue last week, was the possibility it involves of the establishment of another stock company in New York. “Love's Extract” is one of those dodging, three-act farces so dear to the hearts of our transatlantic brethren. It is an adaptation from the French, and its origin is only thinly disguised by Ameri- canizing the names of the characters and locating the scene in New York. The fun hinges on the existence of a secret door between the flats of two French actre: and the complications which arise from the shifting of their numerous lovers in cases of emergency. This is increased by the introduction of a straight-laced New England family as the tenants of one of the flats. The trouble with these plays is that the fun palls after an act or two, Without denying for a moment that “ Love’s Extract” is funny, there remains the truth that towards the end it grows tiresome. Fun of this kind should be confined to one or, at the most, two acts. The crucial test of the Messrs. Rosenfeld’s experiment rests with the company. Judging by the first performance, it will need a large amount of weeding and training before it will meet the requirements of a metropolitan company for the performance of the class of plays which the Rosenfelds announce. It is evident that the company has been carefully rehearsed and that its members possess the vigor and vitality necessary to such plays as “ Love’s Extract;" but it is also evident that the company as a whole lacks polish and deli- cacy. The atmosphere of farce-comedy is too pronounced. The two ladies who are cast for the French actresses recite their lines, when they do not happen to forget it, in French dialect which any frequenter of Bleecker Street French res- taurants will recognize as being absolutely true to nature. Mr. Max Figman also has a prominent dialect part, the lan- guage he imitates being supposed to be Mexican. His dialect, if dialect it can be called, is something that should be talked into a phonograph and preserved as a warning to other OVERWROUGHT IMAGINATION. misguided actors. The other members of the company are in no way remarkable. The bringing over of “The Liliputians " and Mme. Duse shows that the Rosenfeld brothers are courageous as well as enterprising managers. Their attempt to establish another stock company here deserves respectful consideration and all the encouragement its merits deserve. The first produc- tion by such a company can hardly be taken as a fair test of its future accomplishment, but it looks to us as though these gentlemen had selected rather rough material from which to expect very finished results. A good company is not gathered nor trained in a day, and it is to be hoped that the Rosenfelds will have the persistence to bring their venture to a success- ful issue. * . * TH rare bird in this climate,a Shakesperean play, is to be seen at Abbey's. It is Mr. Stuart Robson's comicbooks.com