The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-11-25
"Coon Hollow" at the .Lyceun,


Melodrama comes to it's own again at
the Lyceum theater this week where
Coon Hollow" a play new to Minne-
apolis, Is the bill. The piece is of the
familiar sensational type which will al
ways be popular with a certain class of
theatergoers, but which has little to
recommend it to the more discriminating.
Neither Mr.. Ferris nor Miss Hayward is
in the cast the former having left the
city temporarily to look after his thea
trical interests elsewhere, while his CO.
worker is taking a we'll earned rest.
It is unnecessary to go into details re-
garding "Coon Hollow" Frank melo-
drama, its situations are so highly col
ored as to appear absurd when subjected
to analysis. but it pleases Lyceum audi
ences and that fact must serve as an ex-
cuse for its presentation.
Still another newcomer to the Ferris
ranks, the third in as many weeks, made
his debut in this play Sunday night. He
is Miron Leffingwell, a player Of extended
experience in comedy roles. Mr.. Letting
we'll plays the part of an inventor whose
inventions refuse to work. His twenty
seventh and only successful project re-
suits in his securing a home for life by
marrying his landlady. a woman in whom
age has not succeeded in blighting sentt-
n1ent.
The feature of the production is the
very excellent work Of Miss Maude Gill
bert in the role of a Tennessee girl whose
home is in the mountains and who is
deserted by the man she loves. The part
affords Miss Gilbert her first real OPP
portunity since coming to Minneapolis
and she makes the most Of it. In the
earlier scenes of the play her work Is
wholly admirable, but in the last scene
of all she falls upon the Scylla Of over
repression while seeking to avoid the
Charybdis of exaggeration. Clyde Harrod
was a girl Of unbridled passions, uncon-
trolled emotions, and her grief when she
believes herself to be the murderess Of
her uuondam lover. should be less con-
tanned than Miss Gilbert makes it. How
ever, she depicts finely the girls jealousy
and her longing for revenge; and her
scene with Miss Cecil. as her successful
rival. is excellently handled.
l. The part Of Georgia, the leading role
in the play, has been assigned to Miss
Maisie> Cecil. and she is far from happy
in her Interpretation. Even in melodrama
a Tennessee girl. though she be newly ar
rived from North Carolina, can scarcely
be expected to talk with a Bowery dialect.
and Miss Cecil ruins her best scenes by
transforming her "thc's" into "de's' and
by an assumption Of Bowery toughness
wholly foreign to the character. A girl
raised as Georgia explains she was raised
might we'll be uncouth. though hers
would not be the uncouthness Of the city,
but of the locality which was her home.
49, W. D. .Corbett is happily cast as Lem
Stockwell, a mountaineer in love with
Clyde and whom she persuades to be al
most a villain. His handling of the role
is one of the best things he has ever
done here. Ben Johnson is good as Uncle
Maury and w. H. Murdoch Is eminenhy
satisfactory as Tom Eastman, arch VII
lain.
Like all Of the Ferris productions Coon
Hollow has been well staged. An in
terpolated levee scene, in which a. num-
Der of colored folk, men, women and pick
aninnies dance and sing, is 50 well man
aged that it's irrelevance to the plot must
be forgiven. ~,.: