Life — April 28, 1921 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

CREE RETIN SAIN Drama: Melo and Straight {OGTH AS SILK” was written, rehearsed and produced by Willard Mac instead of taking advantage of a perfectly legitimate precedent and resting, Mr. Mack put in his time polishing up the rough places before bringing the opus to Broadway. Without wishing to be personal, it might have been better if one more day had been put in on a certain other six-day creation which we could in six days, and then, on the seventh, mention. Whatever faults V are nearly always interesting, which gives them a slight lead lard Mack's melodramas may have, they in percentage over the average technically perfect play turned out by our various English 47 courses in dramatic taxidermy. And however reminiscent of the native ham many of Mr. Mack's dramatic mannerisms may be, the fact remains that you are always just a little sorry when he stops talking. al Gey T is true that “Smooth as Silk” is just another one of those crook melodramas, in which the forces of law and order are the forces of evil, and raj gs are royal raiment when worn er since “ Within the Law” any for grand larceny’s sake. character who has been in Sing Sing or is trying for a scholar- ship there, becomes, ipso facto, a jolly old dog with a heart of gold who enlists the sympathy of the audience from the start in his attempts to evade the minions of the law. And any man from Headquarters, by the same token, must be a snake in the grass and comparable only to the City Chap of the “Way Down East” era. The justice of this point of view is not in question. It is simply to announce that “Smooth as Sil those. + is another one of Yu Teves af T is also one of those plays in which, five minutes after the hero has burst into the room, having escaped from jail, boys are heard on the street shouting extras “all about the big escape from Sing Sing.” It happens in this instance to be about 4.4. M. and the editors of the enterprising New York Tribune have apparently considered the story worth the starting of the presses again and assembling newsboys at 3:30 for a noisy canvass of the city, even though the whole thing, when read aloud, sounds rather flat and occupies only a one-column box in the copy displayed by Mr. Mack. However, newspapers will do anything for a sensation these days, and the event might well pass as plausible were it not for the fact that everyone in the audience can understand exactly what the newsboys on the street are shouting. Had the author taken just a little more time in working over his play, he would have realized that the newsboys’ lines should have been: “Eeextrah! © Wwa-blah-blahhhhhhh-bloy!” can’t think of everything. =p But an author M® MACK gets his effect with great subtlety. By way of showing that the young girl in the first act is really too good to be playing around with a gang of crooks, no fewer than two copies of “ The Age of Innocence,” in colors, are hung on the walls. She evidently is one of those young ladies wh know what they like and go in for that. This mural character-delineation offers possibilities. In order to prepare the audience for what is to come, the setting for the first act of “A Doll's House,” for instance, might include three or four steel engravings of “ Breaking Home Ties,” hung at tasteful intervals about the walls. Or several sepia prints of ‘Lorna Doone” in “ Spanish Love.” The chances are endless In the cast with Mr. Mack Mike Donlin, captain of the Giants in his base-running days. If a ball-player is going to act at all, it is much fairer for him to do as Mr. Donlin has done and go on the stage rather than try to play character parts in a World's Series. Another prominent actor from the Jewish Art Theatre, who shares the laurels with his colleagues, Messrs. Mack and Donlin is Joseph Sweency., Mr. Sweeney continues as he began in “Near Santa Barbara,” doing very mean things in an excced- ingly gracious manner. And for the benefit of apprehensive members of the audience let it be stated that of the several dozen guns which are drawn and brandished about during the performance, not one goes off But you are constantly expecting them to, which is just as bad. Ne MARGARET ANGLIN is presenting “ The Trial of Joan of "at the Shubert Theatre for a limited engagement It is a translation from the French of Emile Moreau, and would Arc” not be particularly notable as a piece of dramatic writing were it not for Miss Anglin’s contribution and that of George Foster Platt, who is given credit for the impressive coloring and grouping in the stage pictures. As is always considered necessary in historically accurate productions, much time is taken up during the first act by characters telling each other about “my cousin, who, as you know, is the Duke of Bedford, and who, as you also know, was made Regent of France by the outrageous behavior of Isabeau of Bavaria.” But as soon as Miss Anglin comes on, the action becomes simplified, as action is always simplified in the hands of an artist, and the play resolves itself into an emotional chart of the childlike, ingenuous Maid from the time of her trial (in which the questions asked hy the judges sound ridiculously like a modern legislative investigation committee) until the smoke from her pyre pours in at the window in which her be- trayers are watching. It is perhaps not the gossamer, light- lavender Joan of the Boutet de Monvel paintings that Miss Anglin gives us, but it is one that lives. Bo 8 Ooo 8B tas E oddest thing occurred at the Greenwich Village Theatre the other night. Tickets were sent out and advertiscments inserted in the papers for a performance called “Hubby in LIFE nd th or vo terror (“Th Belm people kn it, n the A crit movin ing 1) somet| “R —Dor succes with comicbooks.com