Identifier: playsplayersleav00eato (find matches)
Title: Plays and players, leaves from a critic's scrapbook
Year: 1916 (1910s)
Authors: Eaton, Walter Prichard, 1878-1957
Subjects: Theater Actors, American Actresses, American
Publisher: Cincinnati, Stewart & Kidd Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ctor. She is one of thosewise players who knows that a performance does notreally shine by contrast, in a poor cast, but by com-petition, in a good cast. The climax of fun isreached at the curtain of the second act, when Bar-naby gets a whip to beat poor Barnabetta, and Mrs.Fiske, to his utter amazement, snatches it from him,throws it through the window, and then hurls at hishead these astounding words—You damn Dutch-man ! Mrs. Fiske is too fine an actress not to create areal character out of the Iowa elocutionist. She isconsistent, and she brings out with consummate ease,when necessary, the lurking womans tenderness.But the part, like the play, is none the less exagger-ated, delicately burlesqued. It is a sort of comicbravura, and executed with all the brilliance of aMelba singing trills, a Kreisler with his magic bow.The lovers of acting in America—and the movieshave not destroyed them all—will flock to this per-formance, and they will be richly repaid. SECTION IIFOREIGN PLAYS
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A LITTLE SIDE-STREET IN ARCADY Pomander Walk—Wattacks Theater,December 20, igio A. B. Walkley said of Quality Street, eightyears ago, it makes us, like St. Augustine in hisyouth, in love with love. It has laid us up in laven-der. In much the same words might the criticwrite to-day of Pomander Walk, by Louis N.Parker, now visible at Wallacks Theater in NewYork. That play, too, is of the period and the per-suasion of Jane Austen. It is King Georges Eng-land preserved in lavender and rose leaves for a cen-tury. Not, of course, that we quite agree that either Po-mander Walk or Quality Street makes us in lovewith love exactly after the manner of St. Augustinein his youth! The search for literary illustrationsto adorn ones criticisms sometimes leads the criticinto unfortunate suggestion. Nor can we quitetruthfully say that Pomander Walk has laid usaway in lavender. Lavender there is, but mingled 141 142 PLAYS AND PLAYERS with its odor is the scent of the old Admiral SirPeters good black b

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