Life — February 25, 1904 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

appeared than as Viola in Twelfth Nig her voi her production of The goody-goody which has marred so many of her per- s, is red d almost to the appearing point, That strain 1 the dying fall,” w Miss A again! Ith ch, in many parts played en, has been so nauseatingly sweet, is welcome by its absence. As Viola sh is most agreeable to gaze upon, and her intelligence fully suttices in the not gre ding the part. The supporting company she ly to t requirements of re a has chosen goes stron the present lack of phiy kespeare, Most disappointing was Mr. Jobn Blair's mphasize ers competent terpret Sl Malootio, It was almost as elephantine in its grace as Mr. Handy- side's Sir Toby in its humor, ‘The Olivia and Maria of \ E pn and Miss Tilbury were pleasantly done, and the sin of Feste was of about the mediocre marily g kespeare’s plays. v ) n by road ort cus nies to the music required in S id in All The scenes and costumes, on which the main stress is to-day’s presentations of Shakespeare, were elaborate and r of the classic comedy is neither very good nor very bad H, this revi (PHE dramatization of Frank Norris's "The Pit’ evidently relies for its success on the magnitude and exactness of the picture of a stormy session of the Chicago Board of Trade. Even here the dramatist (or the person who staged the piece) has omitted a most dramatic, THE BOARD OP TRADE SCENE IN “THE Prt.” novements of the price of wheat during the speculative battle nd his enemies. But tl rimated one, although the story of Jadiein's fight most absorbing and st in thy between Curtis Jadicin scene is never: theless a most a and defeat, whieh is one of th » book, is rather nd seutlling athers ons of life ed in Chicago. The ni its spurts at culture have been more or less i by er written or pictured anyt The Vit.’ From the rium foyer 1 opera n episodes in t crowd of howlin he nes are meant to be graphic ¢ Western Metropolis xatirized and rid but th Jastern critics of modes ad manners, uel than rious groupings of th t down to the room of the v have ng of © persons in the Au this st villain’s free into the an nd easy way of droppin suse for Ch veo and Julie so a libel on the social customs pr til »k County. Mr. Norris's death was a distinct loss to literary America, but it saved him the witnessing of this travesty on Ti feature of the production is Mr. Wilton Lackaye’s Curtis Jadiein. In this character Mr. ine’s bed t before a large amber, the play gives good Igo he open-air dress rehearsal of + audience of Chicago's elite, was most disappointin orris drew @ clean-cut picture of a type familiar to any one who knows the It might have been made a stage- Hy with Mr. Willard'’s Cyrus Blenkarn, uthorities in control of the piece—it is hard to believe that mercantile li creation to rank artistic but th so fine an actor as Mr, Ls ke ¢ is responsible for the ereation— pretty man calculated to interest than the rugged American he Sven in the stage version Jadwin speaks of his age as much greater than Lawra’s, while in appearance he might quite well have been her younger brother. In the same way the Laura of the play is made to resemble Owen V “biseuit- shooter” done up in Paris gowns and a Chicago, sky-scraping pompadour, rather than the girl of igland breeding who won Jadvrin’s love. These and similar changes were perhaps re- yarded as necessities in the attempt to turn the book into a play to please the millions. ‘The result is certainly not artistic If one doesn't mind crudities, ‘*The Pit" will be found a rather have seen fit to m the fancy of the should have beet im ouly inée girl, r ister's anes lL SRR tl comicbooks.com