Life, 1895-03-21 · page 12 of 18
Life — March 21, 1895 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Life Magazine Drama Review: Mrs. Lily Langtry in "Gossip" This page reviews a Broadway play called "Gossip" featuring the famous actress Mrs. Lily Langtry making a comeback. The satirical critique argues the play's sole purpose is displaying Langtry's costumes and jewels rather than serving legitimate drama. The review mocks Langtry's attempt to play an American woman, suggesting she fails at this role as much as other actresses have failed imitating *her*. The accompanying photographs show Langtry at different ages (two and three-and-a-half years old), likely used humorously to contrast her youthful appearance with her actual stage maturity. The top poem jokes about vanity and modernity—a woman entering heaven corrects St. Peter about her "pajamas," suggesting contemporary women prioritize fashionable nightwear over spiritual concerns. The satire targets both the play's frivolous production values and theatrical trends prioritizing star vehicles over genuine artistic merit.
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188 ~LIFE- CORRECTED. HE stocd before the sacréd gates, a blue-eyed, fair-haired miss, Awaiting for her entrance to the rapt'rous realm of bliss ; Until St. Peter beckoned her with courteous wave and cried : ** Come, fair one, enter ; you will find your robe hung up inside.” Upon the kindly saint she glanced with scornful, pitying look. Good Peter quailed before her as her heavenly way she took. And slightly bowing as she passed, she said: ** My thanks, good sir; I dare presume it is to my pajamas you refer.” Tom Masson. MRS. LILY LANGTRY REDIVIVA. $6 (> OSSIP,” the new play by Clyde Fitch and Leo Dietrichstein, in which Mrs. Langtry makes her reappearance on the New York stage, is really very funny. Its authors evidently intended it to be funny in spots, but it far exceeds anything they could have dreamed for it. It’s funny all through. And it's funny not so much from its lines as from its casting, Of that more anon, The sole aim of this piece seems to be to give Mrs. Langtry chances to display her gowns and jewels. In- cidentally there are introduced a fewsituations similar to those | that have been Mrs, Lity LancTRy, | successful in AT THE AGE OF THREE YEARS AND SIX MONTHS. tecent London rated. This following the fashion in playwriting is a habit that is encouraged by the demands of New York audiences, but it is also one that is dangerous to the playwright who seeks any permanent reputation. productions; likewise a few ( lines feebly imitative of the feebleoriginals "But the cast of “Gossip” is its strong point. found in the... < " . First off we have Mrs, Langtry herself imper- epigrammatic sonating an American woman, So many American female persons have tried to impersonate Mrs. Langtry in manners and style, that perhaps she is pardonable in trying to get even. Candidly, though, as an American woman she is not a sort of tailor- success, any more than she is as an artist. LIFE writings of the Wilde and Hope school. “Gossip” is a THE GROWTH OF GREATNESS. VII. made play, and went to see her, prepared to take her seriously. | Mrs, LIty LaNncrry, not a very good He thought that maybe enlarged experience on AT THE AGE OF TWO YEARS. fit nor ably deco- one night stands might have given her a more comicbooks.com