The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-10-04
VIOLA ALLEN
At the Hyperion Last Night in ''The
 Toast of the Town"

At the Hyperion Last Night in 'The Toast of the Town.''
 Clyde Fitch has busy week ahead of him if he wants success for his new play "The Toast of the Town" which ! was given at the Hyperion last night l with Miss Viola Allen as the star, The l play is too long as it stands, and at l least half an hour must come out of it somewhere. A good deal of cutting might be done with profit in the first act, which makes a somewhat tedious l introduction of all the characters. l Comedy as a descriptive name for l the piece, seems to be 8 misnomer. If a wife driven insane by drunken and unfaithfuI husband, and is found at the close of the last act dying alone in the attic of a cheap boarding house-if this be a comedy theme, then MT. Fitch has a comedy, but most people would pre- fer to call it tragedy.
 The story of the piece is unconven- l tion, and is told with alternating grace and force. Miss Betty Singleton, the favorite actress of London in the time of one of the Georges, loves the Duke of Malmsbury, who in turn loves the bottle and himself more than he does Betty. Betty gives up the stage for l love of the duke, but finds on her we'd ding night, as she throws the flowers 1 and Wreaths from her farewell per 1 formance at his feet in the green room of the theater, that he is drunk. Bet l tvs life in the ducal home is full of un- happiness and after repeated quarrels 1 she leaves her husband and goes to the Red Lion Inn on the Thames, where ) after 8 years lapse of time her hus-
 band, urged by his cousin Charlotte, follows her to re-establish her in her home. During the interview the duke confesses that he loves Charlotte. Betty 1 to free him seems to duplicate herself with an old lover and the duke, con- 1 Vinced of her faithlessness, denounces l her and leaves the place not to return Two years later the closing scene is enacted in an attic. Betty has gone rav- ing mad, fancies herself again on the stage. In this condition she is found
 starving by the duke and the curtain goes down on this comedy with Betty fainting in the dukes arms, but still
 mad as a March hare. Mir. Fitch didn't let the duke have the comfort of giving
 her back her reason as sentimental Tommy did in "Grisel," but let the play
 end in deep gloom.
 A good company played the piece.
 Miss Allen, of course, dominated it. She
 was best in the serious lines and best
 of all in the mad scene. In this, al-
 though the hour was long past Il, she
 held every one in close attention. At times she rose to great power. Miss
 Isabel Irving played the part of Bet tvs stage understudy-vain, shallow
 and mercenary-and did it splendidly. Her success was most marked. Miss
 Fannie Addison Pitt made capital
 Duchess of Malmsbury," in whose
 veins there was some royal blood
 which had no business there. A. D. An.
 son, as the duke, was not always con-
 vincing even when he meant to be, but
 the part is a hard one.
 The other characters who had small
 parts-Mr. Hunter as Lord Phillips, MT
 Hassard Short as the dukes younger
 brother, Algernon, and c. Lesline Aller
 as Mclaughlin, the theater manager
 are all good.
 It is a safe wager that the play Gil is given again at S:15 to-night) will be
 much improved on its next perform.
 ance It IS a moving story with the hu.
 man element strong, and much may be
 done with 1t,