Life — February 18, 1897 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

*> LIFE: A REVIVAL AT DALY'S. M R. DALY and Mr. Daly's Company 1 st and up like a new Ararat amid the overwhelming sea of Frohmanism made mistakes — for which he has paid—and has with deserved and met reverses undeserved, but he survives to-day. which hes engulfed our entire theatrical the sole managerial representative of American What- world. He has { ch saps WY ever other criticism may be launched AST at Mr. Daly, it can never be said that he has let commercial greed overwhelm We get so much catch-penny, we find dramatic art. his artistic ambition. that is tawdry and so many managers catering to the cheap public, ready to degrade rather than uphold public taste, that it cannot be wrong to give a few words of what may seem extreme credit where great commendation is surely due The recent revival of **The Magistrate’ shows that there exists a public which has not altogether changed from the public of nine years ago, although the intervening nine years have composed a period of declining standards Mr. Daly's Compar has undergone some serious losses and defee- in our local theatres. tions in that time, but the ruling spirit is still at work and the performance goes with nicety and precision, and cach unit is forced to con- tribute its utmost to the harmonious whole. The play is uproariously funny, but clean— an unusual combination in days when fear of the Grand Jury, or of the Police Captain, pro- vides the manager's only limit of decency. It is highly farcical, but all within the lines of is wholesome and most diet of farce performances which savor too strongly of the good - breeding. Its fun refreshing after a long suggestive. The chief triumph of the revival rests with Mr. Edwin Stevens, who, without Mr, James Lewis's personal peculiarities, makes the part of Posket, the magistrate of Mulberry Street Police Court, acting, highly dignified to start with and side-splitting in its later developments. (Right here it may be well to ask, why retain the “ Mulberry Street” in a play which is so thoroughly English in every other particular? Doubtless there is a an excellent piece of Mulberry Street in London, and it may have a police court, but why Mulberry Strect when there are others —so many others? It looks like an unworthy and inartistic striving for local color.) Towards the end Mr. Stevens rather loses his not overdone English accent, but as he has previously lost his wife, h If-esteem and his cravat, this is not remarkable. Miss Rehan’s uniform excellence goes without saying. Miss Pauline French is a pretty woman who does well and grace. fully the little called for by her part. manages the difficulties of a youth of nineteen passing as a lad of fourteen very well indeed. admirably done, as alway Mr. George Lesoir The minor parts are in Mr. Daly's performances. It cannot be that we find “The Magistrate” good only because we hark back to the days of old, for the younger generation in the audience seemed to rise to its fun and appreciate its excellencies with equal zest. Metcalfe. SOCIETY TRIALS. HAT pawnbroker’s children seem to wear a great deal of jewelry.” “Yes; it nearly kills me to see his twelve-year-old boy strutting around with my watch on.” -STAN Aws. Reginald : ACCORDING TO THE THEORY OF REINCARNATION, 1 AM DOING NOW JUST THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT { DID IN MY PREVIOUS LIFE. “LT SUPPOSE IN YOUR PREVIOUS EXISTENCE YOU LENDING MONEY."" MUST HAVE BEEN ALWAys