Life — October 28, 1909 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

THE HIGHER FOOTBALL—HAMMERING A WEAK LINE INTO SHAPE rather austere character of the book, but made him really more valuable for dramatic purposes. Kathleen Clifford was far more faithful to the original in her portrayal of Amy. Little Dorrit—and missed none of the quaintness and sweet- ness of the character. The minor parts were fair reproduc- tions, and Mr. Joseph Herbert, who staged the piece, evidently had his Dickens well in mind. ef In the present condition of public taste in theatricals it as Pane would be risky to prophesy much of a future for “The TINS <a> Debtors.” A generation that finds its literary pleasure in the J sensations of the newspapers and cheap periodicals hasn't An Agrecable Bit of Dickens and an Alaskan Melo- drama OF semaine books there is no end, and the latest example of this kind of transfor- mation is Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit,”’ done at the Bijou under the title of “The Debtors.” It comes to us in a rather roundabout way, having been made a suc- cessful German play by Fritz von Schoen- thau, and then brought back into its mother-tongue by Margaret Mayo. Persons who take their Dickens seriously have a way of getting indignant when they miss anything from one of the master- novelist’s books that happens to be put on the stage. He was such a genius of detail and so loved to use it that this is rather an unreasonable exaction when one con- siders stage possibilities. They have their revenge, though, when one remembers how almost invariably the author has bafiled the dramatist. The German playwright has been wise enough not to try too much, and the result is a charming little comedy with more of the Dickens atmosphere than has been preserved in more pretentious efforts. Not all of his senti- ment nor all of his humor has escaped in the making of this mere sketch derived from the book. These two qualities and the character drawing make “The Debtors" what it is—a Jean and teuching little play with a good many humorous side hghts Mr. Digby Bell essays the part of William Dorrit, the father of the Marshalsea, where as the longest confined of the isoners for debt he was permitted to give his egotism free rein. Mr. Bell's long career as a comic-opera comedian has apparently given him the delusion that all that is needed to make an old man on the stage is a white wig and an old THE PEOPLE OUT FRONT make-up, for these were all the characteristics of age his wee iaeenatiaed Dorrit possessed. Mr. Bell's Americanism is also pretty pro- feeansec ce aaa uve di ry real to the kid "way up high nounced, which docs not add verity to the characterization. He lets cat's yell when the-tthain caja Diol Mr. Courtenay Foote was the Arthur Clenham, and, being a Tiwish I could feel nowsdaysiag 1 aia young actor of attractive personality, failed to reproduce the Ata show when I, too, was a gallery kid. comicbooks.com