Life — October 26, 1916 — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

SEG. A Pause for Retrospection R. DAVID WARFIELD'S characterization of Herr Von Barwig in “ The Music Master” has become one of those classics of the stage which, like Jefferson’s Rip Van Winkle and the elder Sothern’s Dundreary, preclude the creator from doing anything else. Mr. Jef- ferson was apparently content to do only Rip because with little effort it gave him a handsome income and ample leisure to indulge himself in his other pursuits, Beside it his other impersonations almost fade from memory. The same with Sothern’s Dundreary. Such impersonations give their creators little chance to venture in other fields, because the public wanted them only in the réles most closely associated with their names. Perhaps, too, the sure thing makes the artist timid about new undertakings, lest a failure should im- peril the value of the possession he knows he has. Mr. Warfield has long been ambitious to play Shylock. If he assumed the rdle and failed to catch the public, even though he made an artistic success, his Von Barwig might suffer in consequence and cease to be the sure reliance it is to-day. That it is a stand-by for Mr. Warfield could have no better illustration than his present power to move and please after all these years in a character and play both so familiar to the New York public that one might well believe there would be no new audience to greet its revival. But there was a new audience to welcome the play and actor at the revival of the old drama—a new audience most of whose members were thoroughly familiar with what they were to see, but still new in the sense that they could again laugh afresh and really shed more tears over the old lines and situations. The play itself wears well because of its direct and simple appeal to elementary emotions. It is, of course, Mr. War- field's art that makes these appeals effective and keeps him from the broadening that would immediately suggest itself to an actor of less discernment and finish, He is content to let his colleagues have all the low comedy which makes such a telling contrast to his own more quiet methods. Among the minor rdles—all well filled—that of Miss Houston, created and still played by Marié Bates, comes back to us unchanged and unique of its kind. Readers who think that critics live too much in the past will do well to see Mr, Warfield in “The Music Master,” even if they have seen him before, and contrast his offering with the bulk of what, in the present, passes for high-class theatrical entertainment. ew es _ HE first night of “ Le Poilu” was an interesting occasion, more for the spirit of French enthusiasm and American sympathy that animated it than for the value of the play or its performance. It is a light comedy inspired by the present war, which, given doubtless with a more complete and per- fect performance, may account for its having achieved the success of a long run in Paris. Here it was put on in de- cidedly slip-shod fashion by M. Lucien Bonheur and some members of his French company. So slender was the appeal of the play and the acting, even to a largely French audience, that the climax vanished completely at the appearance of a young woman with imitations and other cabaret features. There was an intimation of what happened in Paris at Mme. Chénal’s singing of “La Marseillaise” when the real thrill came to a New York audience with Mme. Marbourg singing the great song, also wrapped in the flag of France, but with little else to suggest the Paris original. ANCING comes to us in many phases these days—and nights. Maud Allan, who was a pioneer in the startlingly sensual school which has now become so familiar as to be com- monplace and no longer a subject for police discipline, began her pro- jected tour of the country with four Presentations in New York of an entertainment consisting of her physical interpretations of music of Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Offenbach, together with a harem tragedy called “ Nair, the Slave.” This last has the oriental atmosphere so dear to the heart of the dancer and of that section of the public which is educating itself in this new development of an old art. “Nair” is comparatively free from the revolting features of similar offerings by her native and foreign competitors. As dancing goes in these DRUGGIST SEES THE MAN WHO CHARGED HIM SIX DOLLAKS TO FIX A WATER FAUCET COMING TO HAVE A PRESCRIPTION FILLED comicbooks.com