Life — May 30, 1901 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

aA 477 WN “The Brixton Burglary.” OST of the farces that com tous are of the French va riety, involving shady res- taurants, or places with doors and closets in and out which the ur and disappear, or shrubs and trees behind whi Brixton Burglary’ observes the unities of time and place absolutely. The action is confined to one drawing-room and the time to one morning. Everything else in the way of time and place is only sug- gested, with the result that the spectator’s agination may st nder at his will, This is emine and the characters ardens with h they hide. doing something in the unusual. He has taken the usual collec of uppets—husband in a scrape, innocently jealous wife, g: father-in-law, knowi mother-in-law, man friend, eunni vants—and endowed them with new attri- ent that his farce has an bound to make it a good summer att The mother-i entirel mother knows all th aw, for instance, is of an new type. We all know thetypical f farce—the stern lady who wiles of men and thinks her daughter an abused child. ‘This m law is a jolly soul who helps alc daughter's husband in his Lyi ther-in- 1g her and only brings him up with a sharp turn because he cannot lie artistically enongh to command the respect of her superior knowledge of what husbands ought to do as disciples of the lamented Ananias. If hee own hush: her son- nd could have lied to her might have adasired them, at least that is the suggestion of the play. As they did not, she only laughs at them, and the audience laughs with her. As laughter is the object of thoroughly successful it teache it is not to morali successfully, sh 4 farce, this one is As a moral lesson neither one way nor the ndemned as te It is only what a far be — laughable ing im- hould a, what is remarkable imported without being unclean, high credit for nowadays in faree, laughable Mr. Sidney deserves aving given turn to the familiar guise of the people and new LUPE = situations in a kind of entertainment in which all the possibilities seem to have been exhausted, . The presentation calls for little in the way of sce and this is done in the usual furniture shop style to which New York has become accustomed. The costumes are those of the present day and call for no comment on account of their elaborateness, The cast includes a number of well-known names. Miss Elita Proctor Otis enacts the good- ured, but knowing, mother-in-law with all the required humor, The proper finish she will doubtless acquire later, The servants in this farce are more importance than usual, and Mr. Ferguson, who is the butler, and Miss Busby, the maid, do their work very cleverly. It may truly be said of * The Brixton Burglary" that it is the best farce that New York has seen for many a day One of the most remarkable things about it is that it really has a plot, and at the end of the second act the final out is still a myste n anti fe the climax of these imported trifles before the curtain has been up ten minutes. As a summer attraction ‘The Brixton Burglary" should keep the Herald Square Theatre open well into the summer. one ¢: tention has been called to the fact that in the fight of Art ts. The Syndicate the wom combatants bave been the ones to show real courage and staying power, and that wome men were inglor have won where The odwin, Jeffer- usly defeated way in which Messrs. G son, Wilson and \ well remembered sfield gave in is That Mrs. Fiske, Miss Crosman and Miss Bingham have stuck nobly to their colors is equally evident. Metcalfe. LIFE’S CONFIDENTIAL GUIDE TO THE THEATRES, Garden, — Melodramatic staging Under Two Flags? Interesting. of Oulda’s Da'y's, — Flual performances of clever Toy." Empire, Last week of © Diplo: pire stock compang. Good San "by the ay falriy weil Garrick.— Ethel Barrymore and “Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines.” Bright and original. Henrtetta Crosman in + Mistress Clever comedy, Wirtlac Nett.” IN GAY NEW YORK. “1 Wisi YOU WOULD RUN OVER TO THE G DRUG STORE, DEAR, AND GET ME SOMETHING Z To QUIET MY NERVES.” HALP WAY AC Hijow.—Amelia Bingbam and excellent com- pany in “The Climbers.” Worth seetng. Criterion. — “When Knighthood Was tn g Flower,” with Julla Marlowe as the main at- / traction. “ey Herald Square, —" The See above. Brixton Burgiary.” Mailison Square Quiet.” Amusing. Farcical comedy, * Oa the Neve York.—* The King’s Carnival. spots, bat too much of It, Good tn comicbooks.com