10 s
VTHE OMAHA SUNDAY BEE : MARCH 14. 1920.
John Barrymore a Great
"Richard"v
By BURNS MANTLE.
VTEW YORK.1 (Special Corre-
l spondence. Probably there
" ' were- not 50 persons in the
aodience at the Plymouth theater
the. night John Barrymore made
what he terms his "audience plunge"
into the classics with "The Tragedy
of Richard III" who would recog
nize, a "great" Richard if they were
to meet one. And yet all the talk
the next day was of "great" Rich
ards and "good" Richards and of
the younger Barrymore's place
among them.
The answer is simple, lie is a
great Richard, else he could not
have held 1,800 persons in their
seats until a quarter before 1 o'clock
in the morning to see him play
Richard. Not in this day of weekly
blizzards, uncertain commutation
and little interest in Shakespeare.
He is a great Richard, too, in
being a new Richard. He probably
never saw the part played, and I
doubt if he had much coaching from
those who offered to help him. He
is of a mind these days to do things
in his "own way. Thus he is, un
shackled by convention or tradition.
He reads the text naturally and not
jirmiusically, as it appeals to hinv
stressing with the enthflsiasm of
a boy who has discovered a new
ghost story the fiendish imaginings
of hell's famous conspirator.
He plays Richard with the same
zest that, as young cartoonist, he
drew weirdly grotesque and fascin
atingly misshapen humans. He ex
tracts a certain joy from dragging
Jhe shortened leg,' weighted with
armor; in favorinsr the withered
arm, and in bending forward, when
the situation is right, so the crooked
back may add its bulge to the pic
ture. Occasionally, when the scene
and the speech appeal to him he is
apt to forget his deformities and to
stand erect, defying all and sundry,
not as the envenomed Pantaganet,
but as himself, John Barrymore,
Richard's most understanding friend.
He fairly dotes on the scraggly
black wig that changes completely
his expression and the lines of his
finely chiseled features.'
He is not a strong Richard, in a
physical sense. He could not have
been a terror in the field, nor slain
reasonably whole groups of his ar
mored enemies. He is crafty, sin
ister, deceitful, subtle, and is careful
to make tt plain that from his quar
rel with the fate that sent him into
the world an ugly and a crippled
thing is sprung his passion for
power and the satisfaction of being
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T-O-D-A-Y
Matinee and Eve.
and Monday night
America's Greatest Colored Show
The Smarter Set
Headed by tHe Foremost Comedians
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Presenting Their, Latest Musical Creation
"The Children of the Sun"
By George Wells Parker of this city.
Prices Evenings, 25c to $1.50; Mat. Tocfay,25c to $1
Tuesday and Wednesday March 16-17
Matinee Wednesday
ftxmTpiumpwakt
.DasndDelasoo 1
Preaentr
FRINGES
. , STARR.
fr the supreme txxxssoT kcr
brilliant career. Knobloek'jr
rotabl play
OGEE?!
TheUnfinal
and EacauiJrtr1
under the personal directs of
a. nr a
UBtffifulfhfdfiI.Lrt,
ProduWJMPfecr woowl
Seats on Sale. Nights 50c to $2.50.
Wednesday Matinee 50c tor $2.00.
A
OneNight Only-Next Sunday, March 21st
Annual Tour of the World's Greatest Minstrel
Organization
Gus Hill's Big Minstrels
The most stupendous consolidation of Solo
Singers, Star Dancers and Hilarious Comedians ever
assembled in one company.
March 22-23-24 Matinee Wednesday
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Matinee Wednesday 50c 10 $1.-50.
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r
ERANDEIS THEATtX Hua,
THE TUESDAY MUSICAL CLUB
a swaesf TpsBflf
March IS, At iI8.x
MABEL GARRISON
Soprano, Mibaoalltan Opera n ,mjimT
JOHN QUINE
Baritono
even with God by doing Satan's
bidding.
In humor he i not lacking and
yet in his -wooing of the widowed
Ann. following close upon his mur
der of her husband and her father,
which many Richards havep layed
with obvious smirks at the audience,
he is so earnest and so gentle in his
pleading, the success of his suit be
comes the more understandable,
though the scene is made theatri
tally less effective. ,
tie is, not to use more space in
saying so, a great Richard in being
a fascinating Richard who bv daring
to be himself gives new life to an
old tragedy that only such treat
ment could successfully revive for
this particular generation of play
goers. 4
In the version of the tragedythat
has been patched together for Mr.
Barrymore's use, five scenes are
taken from the preceding play of
"King Henry VI." They are used
as a sort of sketchy prologue, with
the hope, no doubt, of clarifying for
a modern audience the situation as it
affected the houses of Lancaster and
York at the moment of Richard's de
termination to cleave his way to the
throne. Thus a couple of sightly
murders (those of Henry and Ed
ward) are added to the entertain
ment, Edward being slain on the
field of Tewkesbury and Henry in
ar iron cage in the tower. This ver
sion also permits the use oi the lit
tle known but informative soliloquy
beginning, "Would he (Edward IV)
were wasted, marrow- bones and all,
that from his loins no hopeful
branch may spring to cross me from
the golden time 1 hope for."
In general, however, the added
scenes complicate with new char
acters and obscuring speeches as
much as tliey clear up the' story, and
add little that the older acting ver
sions, which employed but one, or
at most two, of the scenes from
"Henry VI." did not contain. After
the first act the. tragedy proper is
played, the action around Richard
exclusively. Let the classicists quar
rel as to whether or not they were
wisely made.
The cast is mostly English and
thoroughly competent. It includes
Leslie Palmer as Buckingham, E.
J. BalUntinc as Clarence, Arthur
Row as Kir.g Henry, Reginald Den
ny as Edward, Mrs. Thomas Wise
as the Duchess of York, Evelyn
Hall as Elizabeth, Helen Robbins
as Anne, and Stanley Warmington
as Catesby. Robert Edmund Jones'
settings are impressive in Jboth the
simplicity cf the inner scenes and
the massivetiess of the tower. At
the end cf the second act Ethel and
Lionel Barrymore and John Drew
took their places in an upper box
and the happy audience applauded
them.
fc
In Percy iMackaye's "George
Washington" we first meet "the
man who made us," which is the
author's subtitle,- when he was a
farmer lad at Mount Vernon and
just after he had completed a par-
"OMAHA'S FUN CENTER"
I Daily Mat. 15-2S-50c
rEvnff., 2S-50-7SC 91
' Cha. Waldron Praatnts
THEBOSTOHIANSb.
With, the Author-Actor
Frank Funny Finney V&h1
Beauty Chora, of Bean Eating Boston Girl
LADIES' DIME MATINEE WEEK DAYS
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t 4f , :
Forenze Sempest
Miss. Ovandos
(fit PRESS)
ticularly good job of surveying
Lord Fairfax's acres. He is then a
husky boy of 23 and much inter
ested in scientific arming. More
interested in farming, in fact, than
he is in the girls, who already are
beginning to irritate him. To avoid
them he slips off and marries the
widow Custis and brings her home
as Martha Washington. And that
is the first act.
Next we discover the "Liberty
Boys" becoming active. - A group of
them surround King's (now Colum
bia) college, acting much like
groups of radicals usually act, and
threatening to ride the Tory cooper
on a rail to prove their contempt
of King George and all his adher
ents. Then appears young Alexan
der Hamilton to harangue the mob
into good humor and take their
minds off the defiant professor long
enough to permit him to escape.
Jumping back to Mount Vernon,
we find the loyal Martha buckling
on George's sword and promising to
wait for hirn under the sycamores,
or at least to be there when he shall
come home from the wars. Next
scene we find the general settling a
a dispute between " the Massachu
chusetts "Johnnies" and the Vir
ginia "Jennies" in the first rainbow
division to gather in these states.
Then we have an impressive pic
ture of Washington reading a para
graph from the declaration of inde
pendence (accepted locally as a
timely protest against the
eighteenth amendment) and proceed
thence to the shores of the Dela
ware with Tom Paine and Alexan
der Hamilton exchanging greetings
and philosophies in the foreground
and Washington pacing the back
ground, depressed and heart-broken
because none of his division is
ready to risk the crossing with him
at dawn.
Thirdly, we are at Valley Forge,
where, thanks to one of those
muddling congresses from which
many citizens still are forced to accept-
their ancestors and pretend to
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VF1
ULFLKXIj ))) -
PERSONAL DIRECT (ON OF W.LEDOUX-AfFfUATEO WITH
ASSOCIATION-B R KEITHS AND
STANDARD ACT5-y5LL SHOWS
,Q
WESTERN VAUDEVILLE MANAGERS
ORPHEUS) CIRCUITS - ANO PLAYING ONLY BI6 TIMtv
ARC CHOSEN FOR THEIR ENTERTAIN lMCJ DUALITIES
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It's the Cook That Has
the Heart Appeal
PRANCES STARR who play,
the part of Sally, the engaging
cook, in capt. Edward Knob
locks remarkable aex drama.
"Tigerl Tiger!" which will be seen
at the Brandeis this week, has
opinions quite as convincing as
Meredith who long ago avowed
"civilized man can't live without
cooks.
"In choosing a cook as the hero.
of his piece," the star of the play
saia recently, "tne playwright chose
the primitive woman, and the
kitchen of today comes nearer be
ing the background of such a type
than any place in the modern home.
In fact it seems to me that the
kitchen is, now the one and only
place in the home where woman is
absolutely and always her true self.
There she reverts to tvpe and one
sees her as she is without any of
the externals that mean so much
to a woman only because she
thinks they mean so much to
man.
"The kitchen in a house it seems
to me, is somehow its heart its
throbbing, beating center of activity
We can live without drawing rooms
and libraries, without boudoirs and
dressing rooms, even at a pinch we
can make-shift somehow for a bed
room, but there must be a kitchen
if tt ts to be a home.
"There never was a real woman,"
Frances Starr continued, "who
wasn t at heart a cook. It is the
woman nature to wish to minister
to man, and food in this life is
the first necessity to man's happi
ness and well being.
Again it bally had been a
stenographer, or say a bookkeeper,
the play could never have hap
pened. Knoblock knew his types.
He knew the appeal that the
healthy and splendid vitality of the
country girl made to the blase man
of the town. He was sick of
mentality. Fed up on theories, and
consequently a victim marked for
the first all feminine primitive worn
an who crossed his path and of
course the affair was all the more
inevitable when the man in the case
met her in the spring moonlight,
nenr, where lilacs were in bloom.
"I worked longest on my make
up for the part," Miss Starr said.
'The Monde hair is not my own
'touched up' as many seem to think.
It is a golden wig. It makes me
rounder, more mature. And that is
my-idea of Sally. She is nearest
like 'Tess' and she comes from that
part of the country. I have tried
to create the illusion of a woman,
fashioned of Devonshire clotted
cream and strawberries, warm with
do so with pride, 3,000 of the faith
ful troops are left "naked and starv
ing" the winter through.
But here the light begins to shine
with the -irrival of Lafayette and
the promise- of aid from overseas,
and next scene we are at the edge
of Yorktown with Washington,
Knox and Colonel Nicola describing
the bombardment that finally
flashes, white and blue to indicate a
victory won. And lastly we are
taken back to Mount Vernon, wheta
the fighter who would a-farming go
returns, to Martha and the syca
mores. .
It is not on the whole, an im
pressive spectacle. The poet Mac
kaye has labored earnestly and
brought forth a masque for children
and patriotic holidays that missea
the holding quality of drama. It
serves "to humanize and creditably
to visualize the father of his coun
try and there are moments when it
flares with the inspiration of Rreat
historical moments. But generally
it is crude and choppy and does not
compare with John Drinkwater's
drama of "Abraham Lincoln."
Walter llampden is a human and
at times an eloquent Washington
and the snpporting cast is compe
tent without being distinguished.
George Marion reads the interludes
splendidly, but his effort at singing
the folk songs is a little painful.
sunshine, vivid with life and ready
to love and to be loved."
. t r t
The action of the play opens in
the luxurious apartments of Clivt
Couper, member of parliament,
bored and lacking interest in the
concrete things of life and utterly
unmoved by the love of the beautiful
daughter of his old friend. Then
comes into his life a little servant
girl, a cook, whom he picks up in
the street, and they enter into an il
licit love affair which continues for
two veari. It is to the unlttir(t
girl of the masses that the awaken.
nig mine ratucr mail .to me cul
tured and gifted man of the world.
The scene at tlu rln of thr thirA
act, when Sally renounces her lover
and at last confesses to him and to
herself that the end had come, is
spoken of by New York critics as
tne most pcwtriui dramatic situa
tion ever shown mi thr FncrllcU-
speaking stage, and Miss Starr and
Lionet Atwill both rise fullv tn it
tremendous possibilities.
1 Miss Starr's sunnortinir east ia
the identical original rnmmnv in.
tact, exactly as seen on Broadway,
including, in addition to Lionel At
wilL Frederick Llnvd. Wallar Pn.
kine, Whitford Kane, Thomas Lou
den, Mary Moore, Daisy Belmore
and Helen Andrews.
-.
Otis Skinner, who comes to the
Brandeis in "Pietro" in a recent
conversation regarding the various
feeling actors undergo on first
nights, said:
'A first niKht v is formidable.
enough at any time of life. You
have all the natural buovancv. the
exhilaration of expectancy, which
amounts almost to hysteria, to hold
in check. Of course, different ac
tors take it differently. Some arc
naturally phlegmatic. Indeed, I can
recall occasions, when I was mv
own producer, stage manager, car
penter and leading man, when the
whole burden and weight of detail
so oppressed me that on the open
ing night I was under my part
rather than over it I like to ko
to the theater on mv first nieht
without the faintest consciousness
of any stage detail whatsoever, be
cause I want to feel that all these
things have been intelligently pro
vided. Of course, the natural ten
dency on first nights is toward an
overstraining for effect and too
cften one starts out in one's big
scenes on such a high key that it
is impossible to get it any higher.
Still I am not sure that it isn't bet
ter to err on the side of hitting your
top note too soon than on that of
under-expressing your part. For
the main thinir is to know your
audience. With the exception of
the student, the critic and the artist,
the public goes to the theater for
sensation which is. after all, the
fundamental appeal of all art. The
part of Hamlet which really catch
the average audience are the ghost
scene and the play scene with their
suggestions of hysteria. In short,
the theater is, in a way, a palace
of sensation.
"Besides. I love mv work, and
there is no keener sense of enjoy
ment to me than that which exists
in the period from the selection of
the clay, through all its prepara
tion, to its final performance. There
is so much lor the actor to study,
so muvh that will develop and round
out hi3 art. To take his calling
seriously is no less an essential for
an actor than it is for any other
professional man or for any other
artist."
Aviator Smith Plans
Flight Around World
London, March 13. Sir Ross
Smith, who was knighted for his
flight to Australia, is considering a
flight around the world, says a Mel
bourne cable. .He thinks the trip
can be made in 70 days.
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FREE LECTURE I
I -by- I
1 ' ; PETER W. COLLINS of Boston
, National Lecturer of Knights of Columbus
I BOLSHEVISM, THE RED MENACE
MUNICIPAL AUDITORIUM .. I
Tuesday Evening, March 16, 8 o'CIock
- Admission Free Questions Answered The Public Invited
Space Reserved for Veterans of the World War
5 S
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jcreen briars
, at Home Ttnd
Around Studio
PATHE WEEKLY h
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VA
WEEK STARTING SUNDAY, MARCH 14
MATINEE DAILY 2:15 EVERY NIGHT :1S
Sacond Edition of
THE 4 MORTONS
5am, Kitty, Martha and
"THEN AND NOW"
Homer B. Marg ucrita
MASON ft KEELER
Praaantins a Ona-Act
Play
MARRIED"
MACRAE & CLEGG .
Tha Intruder
"THE QUEEN OF THE WHEEL"
FL0RENZE TEMPEST
in
"TUMBLE IN LOVE"
Alton Allan
PREVOST & COULET
In
A VAUDEVILLE MELANGE
LYONS ft Y0SC0
Intraductal Tbalr Own
Excluaiva Compoaitiona
RUTH BUDD
Taa GW With tha
Saalte
TOPICS OF THE JAY
KINOCRAM5
Nichta, ISe to t I.OOi Sundayo and Hotldaya law at SI Mt
Matinaaa, 15c to 7Sc (Patrona Pajr War Tax.)
-: Mans SOe to tftl,t, an Sola March JS No War fan.
V
