Theatre Arts (Volume 4)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ...returning in a Shakespearean repertory, set in ineptly modern backgrounds, moving at a snail's pace and carrying conventional old costumes. Sophie, a somewhat historical comedy of Sophie Arnould, written by Philip Moeller in lines that are often frisky, but never particularly comedic, only passably acted by Emily Stevens, but with O. P. Heggie quite his charmingly simple self. Martinique, a costume melodrama of the West Indian Creoles, by Lawrence Eyre, occasionally interesting by reason of the local color or the acting of Josephine Victor and Arthur Hohl, but operatic as any libretto, and only worth seeing for the last act setting by Lee Simonson. All Soul's Eve, a play by Anne Crawford Flexner, dealing none too skilfully with an Irish legend of the supernatural transplanted to America; a first act of real interest and good performances by Cyril Keightly and Lola Fisher. Footloose, the old melodrama Forget-Me-Not rewritten by Zoe Akins, and made a little but not much more probable; well acted in the main by Emily Stevens, O. P. Heggie, Norman Trevor, and Elizabeth Risdon. Not So Long Ago, a sentimental and amusing comedy of New York in the 70's, by Arthur Richman, filled with much charming dialog, and excellently acted by Eva Le Gallienne and others; the only play of the lot worth seeing. VI Far more significant than any dramatic event of the quarter, and more interesting, to me at least, than even Medea, is the one-man-show of Robert Edmond Jones at the Bourgeois Galleries, where that excellent impressario of the artists presented the exhibition of the American scenic artists last spring. It is more than three rooms of novelty, charm and beauty. From the costume sketches for The Birthday of the Infanta, that...