Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1899-09-24

70 - aO
Miss Hobbs" She is no more at her
ease in this new four act comedy OF
Jerome K. Jerome, which has just been
put on at the Lyceum, than Nancy
Hanks would be in a furniture van.
Seeing an actress of such delicacy and
refinement in this Miss Hobbs" is like
hehoIding a diamond cutter breaking
cobblestones. 1t is like setting an opa:
in a Brummagem brooch. Not that
MI. Jerome's little comedy is % a de-
1ightful and in n way an excellent
piece of dramatic work. In fact, it Is
eve safe to predict that Miss Hobbs
will be one of the successes OF the year.
But there is only n Annie Russell.
That lady has her limitations, it is true,
but she also has her own particular
niche in the temple of Thespis, if you
can call it a temple nowadays, and that
niche no n can fill SO we'll as she.
There may be with Miss Russell a
tendency to reduce all her roles to a
certain dovelike pensiveness, a rome
ness to signs and a somewhat passive
s~accharinity and too passionate de-
Votion to the lachrymose muse; but,
on the other hand, Miss Russell is ar
artist to the finger tips. She has an
intangible faculty for intellectualizing
everything she undertakes. and even
though she weeps over you when you
expect her to be blithe and buoyant,
even though she is melancholy when
the prompt book says merry" is there
any n who car shed tears more soul
fully than Miss Russell herself? There
is, in sooth, a certain ra1npow beauty
even in those profuse tears of hers,
though it must be acknowledged she
weeps more with the centralized pathos
OF her voice than with her eyes.
But in Miss Hobbs there are no
tears. One might even say that Jerome's
new comedy is a farce, so improbable
are the situations at times and SO
broad withal. But at the same time
the treatment is happy and pleasingly
light. 1t Is the wholesome and simple
little story of how a new woman with
a passion for the emancipation of her
sex finally meets and is sUbdued by the
all masterful male brute for whom she
originally had entertained such a pro-
found contempt. The man in the case
even allures the charming but none
the less strong minded Miss Hobbs
aboard his yacht and, pretending that
they have drifted out TO sea in a fog,
makes the idealistic emancipation of her
downtrodden sisters build a fire in the
cabin range, cook chops for him, make
a pot Of coffee and perform those other
mental duties which brutal man has
imposed upon unprotesting womanhood
for centuries.
This first plunge into domesticity is
the salvation of Miss Hobbs. She gives
up all her beautiful plans for the re-
demption of her sex and marries the
man for whom she once nursed moth
ing but disgust. But Miss Annie Rus
sell cooking chops seems an %lncongru-
ity. Aphrodite with a carpet sweeper
is no more startling than Our soulful
Miss Russell with a frying pan. She
is worthy of better things. She has
established her claim to higher dramatic
ideals than this, and, to tell the truth,
one cannot help feeling that Miss Rus
sell herself knows she is not at home
in Miss Hobbs" In the first two acts
she is l~istless, passive and reserved.
She does not let herself out. indeed,
until the last act, when the real oppor-
Iunity for delicate and delightful work
presents itself. Miss Russell takes adj
vantageo / that opportunity to the full,
for the charm and finish and subtlety
of her work in those last few finishing
touches are quite sufficient compensa-
tion for the listlessnesS of the two
earlier acts,
The company presenting Miss
Hobbs is an excellent one. Charles
Richman as Wolff Kingsearl, the Pc
truchio who tames the redoubtable Miss
Hobbs, made a possibility of whit
would have proved a hopeless part
without the forceful Interpretation this
actor gave it. Clara Bloodgood did ex-
cellent work as a loving but somewhat
irascible young wife, and Mrs. Gilbert
of the Empire theater company, showed
that she is still a great fayorite with a
New York audience.
On the whole, Miss Hobbs" cannot
fail to be n of the favorites Of the in
coming season. Great as its success
may be, it is doubtful if Charles Froh-
man will find that it ever compensates
for the throwing away if Miss Russell.
We prefer her sincerity to her burned
chops.
The theatrical center of America just
at present is Paris. In Paridise," still
another Partisan farce, has just been
shipped over to us, and, redolent of
moth balls and bilge water, was put at
the Bijou tleater in this city. where 1t
will edify the lovers Of the good, the
true and the beautiful who care TO be-
hold such things as seen through the
speetacles of the decadent Frenchman.
But If signs are not amiss there will
soon have to be a change in French
farce. For two years now the n par
ticular plum in this soggy pudding has
been a bed room scene. In fact, a fin
de ciecle farce without a bed room
~escapade would eb like Hamlet with
out the Prince.
The essential bed room became the
idol of the French playmaker. There
was something so %piquant, suggestive
and forbidden about a bed chamber
that the concocter of the modern farce
has not been able to keep out of it. He
became a pantalooned chambermaid
and took possession Of this holy of
holes of the household and wove it
into the web of his imaginings. He
nshed in the era Of pyjamas and the
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