Life — February 16, 1899 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

AMES A. HERNE appeals to the public in the triple capacity of dramatist, actor and manager. As manager, he gives clean plays, adequately produced and carefully staged, cast, and rehearsed. His ‘Shore Acres,” which has been seen the country over, was ap excellent example of bis methods in this capacity, and they are sbown again in bis new “Rov, Griffith Davenport,” now playing at the Herald Square istic school. His stories are located amid fami! surroundings, and his characters are clean-cut and true to their place and period. In * Rev. GrifMlth Davenport” his scene is the valley of the Shen- andoah and the city of Washington, about the timo of the breaking out of tho civil war. It will give the now generation a graphic idea of the way human hearts were played upon by the sectional differences of that time, and makes vivid the domestic side of the institution of slavery, Two of the acts end in ways that are out- side of the conventional. In one, the minister represented by Mr. Herne is show: rivg a prayer for the welfare of the Union, As y from the Lord’s Prayer, it may offend the sen- sibilities of those who believe in keeping the things of religion off of the stage, but it is simply and reverently done, and dramatically is a strong climax. The other is the end of the pliy itself, which throughout has been varied by powerful situations, and finally tapers off intoa touching but uneventful and uninteresting love scene between the elderly preacher and his wife, While a strong finish is not neces his sceno is so prolonged that it becomes tiresome, and makes one almost forget the really good things that have gone before. Mr. Herne as an actor is also of the realistic school. Weall remem- ber the Meissonier-like minuteness of his methods in “Shore Acres,” and, while Griffith Davenport is built on broader lines and is RS. LESLIE CARTE cording to color precedent, might appropriately have been cast for the mistress of The White Horse Tavern.” Failing Mrs. Carter's crimson tresses, Miss Amelia Bingham brought her blonde ¢ and a pronounced Indiana dialect to the rescue, blonde hair is appropriate to the Austrian Tyrol, but the Indiana twang was a biemisb, in spite of the fact that several other actors in the east used other dialects, ranging from lish of Mr. Felix Morris to the patois of Mr. Dietrichstein, “The White Horse Tavern” most amusing comedy. It deals with the love of a head waiter (admirably acted by Mr. Frederic Bond, of whom we see too little in New York) for the mistress of the tavern, and various complications among the guests, It is not NEVER. the funniest thing ever put on the New York stage, but itis funny; Levis Drv YOU XEPER KEAT BOW: DORE TREE CHEWS, MESUACK, anADRACE the fun is clean, and the pleco provides a yery pleasant way of xp avepNeco, Come OLDT OF DOT FIRE FURNACE ALL RIT diverting one’s thoughts from Wall Street, the Filipinos, poisoning Muldoon: OF DID. AN? DID YEZ IVER HEAR OF A HEBREW WHO DIDN'T ses, and the other annoyances of life. COR OUT OF A FINE ALL RoiGuT?