Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-02-14
T q E T q E A T E R.
New National Theater.

The admirable Mr. William Gillette was
the attraction at the New National Theater
last night, despite the title of the play
Mr.. Barrie, it's author has borrowed the
popular appellation of the accomplished
Scot and with the license which hedges In
the humorist as well the poet has be-
slowed it on a butler in a British house.
hold. The play is preposterous concelt,
and with characteristic vagueness Mr.. Bar
RE leaves the auditor in doubt whether 1t
is satire on aristocracy or good, old
fashioned English defense of social distinc-
lions. To make a hero of f1unky is the
task which Mr.. Barrie sets himself Hav-
ing succeeded in this. he undertakes as
denouement to turn his hero back into a
fiunky, and it is only the delicate art of Mr..
Gillette that gives the transformation pass
ing verisimlitude. Fancy rebels. 1t refuses
to serve as a foot ball even for so gentle
and insinuating an author as Mr. Barrie.
Having consented to take his comic-opera
plot seriously, 1t is too much to be poHteiy
requested to regard the entire matter as
joke merely because Mr.. Barrie once more
says presto, change This fine CHAP,
butler in England, but easily chlet or the
shipwrecked party on desert Island is
surely worthy of the hand OF his lordship
daughter, since he has saved her and her
family from starvation and risen above
them all from sheer force of native genius.
If Mr. Zangwill can make Merely Mary
Ann worthy of her distinguished lover Mr.
Barrie might have made Crichton eligible
to the hand of the girl who loved him, even
if he had to defy Burkes Peerage in the last
act and make a noble ancestry for him out
of the whole cloth Mr.. w. S. Gilbert would
not have hesitated about such concession
to the playgoer, who likes happy end
ing" and Mr.. Gilbert wrote better comic
operas than Mr.. Barrie, for his had clever
rhymes in them, and music, too.
And yet it is easy to see why Mr.. Barrie.
having discovered really novel idea for
Mo CHI ha11 n1 q Srut NJ
it into the level of the commonplace by
resort to any of the trte articles by which
people in love are usually united. NO re.
sentiment which THE Admirable Crichton"
may arouse by it's daliance with our senti-
ments can face down the fact that 1t is
clever. Only an extremely clever play
would dare to be so audacious, setting
staid member of the British nobility caper-
ing with a concertina and putting his
daughters into Ieathern trousers on trop1c
island, where they live like colony of
charming Robinson Crusoes.
Mr.. Gillette assumes the title role AS the
servant he is faithful in his delineation of
a type. Later, as a hero, he gives express
sion to the quiet romance which distin-
guishes his best interpretations. 1t is ro-
nance of a wholesome, unostentat1ouS sort
that he always suggests.
The play is most effective in those scenes
which characteristic of Mr.. Gillette.
The one which leaves him deserted, in the
glow of his camp fire, is a particularly no
table example of final studied pictorial eff
feet
The company is competent one. An excel
lent bit of character work is done by Kate
Meek as the slavey whose social status
below stairs is so indefinite that she is call
ed ''Tweenie'-short for 'Between.' A re-
markabe amount of proficiency is displayed
by a number of people who have little more
to do than to give momentary touches of
comedy to the performance. Miss Sybl
Carlisle enjoys and profits by exceptional
opportunities in the role of the naughty
heiress who is on the point of marrying the
governor of the island when the gun sounds
from the rescung ship and transforms him
again into an impossible butler.