Life — March 28, 1895 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

Se ae = * LIFE: 205 directly to Mr. Frohman’s artistic nature is that of Mr. Jameson Lee Finney (sic). If Mr. Frohman is not careful, the Barnum circus will acquire Mr. Jameson Lee Finney, and Broadway will be minus a most excellent freak in the line of real art. . We have not touched on the morality of “ John-a-Dreams.” It’s the old question of sexuality, and when a stage doesn’t produce art why bother about its morals? This public is too busy making money to care much about art, and is too much occupied in closing billiard rooms on Sunday and stop- ping racing to worry about stage morals. The stage is an instructor, and we send our wives and daughters to see “ John-a-Dreams" while we're making money and admiring Parkhurst, Gerry and Comstock. Whath’ell have we got to do with art and real morals ? Metcalfe. ASTLETON: Isittrue that Miss Wiberly referred to me as an agnostic, CLUBBERLY: She said you didn’t know anything. COMING TO THE POINT. on earth without their having to create im- possible types. Fortunately the scene is laid in England, and such chumps as Harold Wynn may exist there somewhere among the agricultural population, but it seems rather cruel to the theatre-going public to put them in dress clothes and expect them to be swallowed as people even sufficiently educated to read the daily newspapers. But the continued success of the green- goods game perhaps entitles Mr. Chambers to attribute any degree of stupidity he pleases to the Oxford graduate, and we poor Americans have to take him as Mr. Cham- bers (per Mr. Frohman) gives him to us. ‘The play tells a story, a sort of penny-dread- ful story, and so long as the matinee girl ¢ this sort of play at the Empire Theatre with Mr. Charles Frohman’s ideal cast is bound to goon. The same proportion holds good between literature like the New York Family Story Paper and the living popula- tion of chamber-maids. Mr. Frohman’s people don’t do quite as well this time as usual. Mr. Miller is decidedly stagy, and Miss Viola Allen has reverted to her sloppy-weather methods. She broke away from them in “ Sowing the Wind,” and to a less extent in ‘ The Masqueraders,” but now returns to the old level of whine and bad accentuation. Mr. Miller is at times so throaty as not to be understood. The parts are unnatural and ungrateful, and the artists have our sympathy ; but this fact does not pardon all their short- comings. A performance which must appeal GIVES His SEAT TO A LaDy, FEELING THAT HE IS INCONSIDERATELY CROWDED BY HIS NEIGHBORS, SLOWSON SEEKS REVENGE AND —