The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-09-27
A ROLE F0RALAzY ACTOR
..THE MAN FROM BLANI<LEN'S"
HOLDS CENTER OF STAGE.
Most Plays Require Much Revision
Before They Succeed-A New
York Tough show.

Correspondence OF the indianapolis Journal.
NEW YORK. Sept. 2s-In the comedy
of 1.-The Man from Blankets" which is
new 10 us this week. though three years
old I'm London. we have a star actor who
speaks only nine minutes during the hum
dred and sixty that the play lasts. Yet he
is the dominant parsonage. though each OF
three others talks a great deal more and
therein lies a lesson for our players or
stage heroes. The man in this case is
Charles Hawtrey. one of Londons actor
managers. and SO it was he who. i'm reading
and buying Mr.. Anstey's manuscript dis
cerned that the leading character need not
lead in loquacity in order TO lead in in
terest. So we have him in sight almost
all the time. but silent and motionless dur
ing most of it, OF course. he has a strik-
ing and appropriate personality. else his
experiment would have failed at the outset,
and we i'm America would never have seen
him in his success of inactivity. sauniering
among the guests at dinner party, sitting
inconspicuously at the table. only twice i'm
the whole evening doing anything assertivo
and never indicating that he knows where
the center of the stage is.
This Mr.. Hawtrey is suggested. If rot
described. by the haw-haw name he has
assumed professionally. That is to say,
he realizes in face and figure the imper-
turbably calm of London fashion
whom we frequently see caricatured. We
all know that the English aristocracy
averages about the same that countrys
middle classes" I'm communicating man.
yet the novelists have made Instructive
ly think of young lord as fine-faced and
tall-fgured. Well. that is what nature
made of Mr.. Hawtrey. and he has added
the accomplishments of comedian in the
undemonstrative manner of our John Drew.
Some of the roles in which we have had
Mr.. Drew were original with Mr.. Haw-
trey in London. 1t used to be said that Mr..
Hawtrey planned year after year TO make
American tour. but often Charles
Frohman offered him such a price for his
current play that i'm his usual state of i'm
pecuniosity, caused by prodigal life, he
sold out the material with which to come
to us. Two years ago Mr. Frohman ac-
quired both him and ''rhe Messenger from
Mars" and so introduced him TO America.
KY
The gist of ''The Man from Blsnkley's'' is
that a rich but rather vulgar London
matron fears that she will have the un-
lucky number OF thirteen at her dinner
table, and so she sends for A fourteenth
from BlankIey's department store where
almost anything can be obtained, including
presentable young fellows for such emer-
gencies; that. there being. after all,
cessity for this dummy, she countermands
the order: that the lord impersonated by
Mr.. Hawtrey plumbers into the house in
stead of going next door. where he has a
dinner engagement with a stranger, and
that the hostess mistakes him for the man
from Blankey's. The misunderstanding
takes on many phases. including the wom-
ans snubbing of a real lord and some OF
her guests fawning on him.
A full half hour of the middle act passes
with Mr.. Hawtrey silent among the guests
at the table. except for a pertinent re-
mark once in while. A dinner is served
| fully and formally In courses by pompous
butler and two graceful maids, while de-
slutory but mostly amusing conversation
goes on. Only at the end of this act when
the maltreated lord resents an insult by the
husband OF the hostess, and In the last act.
when he proposes to the refined governess
VI thc hohShttts 10 it at ftIlpuSs
| BUT the talk and action are all about and
| around him. so that he is the center Of in
| terest continuously with no effort on his
| own part TO hold attention. III ever there
was a strong role for lazy actor. this is
| the Perhaps Mr.. Hawtrey took THAI
into account when he accepted Mr. Anstey's
whimsical comedy.
The other English actor newly with us,
| Charles Warner. is horrifying Us with a
dreadfrlly close imitation OF death from
delirium tremens. 1 mentioned II last week,
but the particulars are worth giving In the
fourth act of Charles Reade's stage version
| of Zola's novel, here called Drink" a
shattered man totters I'm from a hospital
His face is deeply lined his eyes stare. his
| hair has fallen out and his BODY shakes
uninterruptedly. the quivers sometimes be-
| coming convulsive. An evil woman, who
has worked mis- downfall. pretends 20 be his
| repentant friend. She brings what pur-
| ports TO be weak claret. the only stimu-
liant permitted. but on tasting IL he finds
that II is the dreaded brandy. Thereupon
ensues a scene so terrihlA thos az every