The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-12-31

year, had as odd titles as the most &C.
| centric could wish for. What do you
think OF Alice Sit -the-Fire." Pan
taloon, 1.-The Gingerbread Man." ''As
Ye Sow, Mary. Mary, Quite Contra
ry?" The first two were as odd as their
names. When you note that they were
by James M. Barrie the fact that they
were peculiar is not. in itself. peculiar.
The English novelist, more or less re-
Gently turned dramatist, likes to be
surprising and strange, has the wit to
accomplish his purpose, and. above all,
has made for himself a position that
gives managers confidence enough to
produce oddities Of his that they would
hes tate to take from any one else. Add
to the Barrie vogue, which is on its top
wave just now, the popular love OF Bar
| rymore, and you will see that these
two plays Of the Christmas lot had al
most no chance to fail. Three Barry
mores and two products OF Barrie made
a heavily laden Christmas tree from
Santa Claus Frohman for the play
goers Of New York.
All Of the Barrymore Barrie vogue
rolled into one didn't make nine
strike sort Of hit for the short piece of
the two. But the $3.50 acceptance Of
"Pantaloon" was soon forgotten In the
enthusiastic endorsement Of the COM
| pletely successful alice Sit-by-the-
Fire" In the first play. Lionel Barry
more undertook TO do what Henry
Irving might have done. and In the sec
ond. Ethel Barrymore duplicated the
success that Ellen Terry achieved in
1t in London. And in both, John of the
Barrymores added to the general Joy,
quite on his own account and in his
| individual way. ''Pantaloon" is one Of
those Barriesque conceits that some
folk like hugely, and declare to be
''above the heads" of people who don't
enthuse over them. It showed Panta-
loon of the pantomime. laughless and
aging, the forgotten stage favorite in
dire distress Clown wooed his daugh-
ter, Columbine, she eloped with Harle-
| gum. In the second part Of the piece,
Pantaloon IS more miserable still older,
and lonely for his daughter, and quite
forgotten by the tickle public of the
play. But Columbine returns, and with
her baby Pantaloon, who, the grand
father joyfully prophisizes. will "re-
vive the glory of an ancieat family"
Some people thought they saw in
Arthur Wing Pinero's farce of "a Wife
Without a Smile" a slap at Barrie,
| whose sudden fame in the drama has,
with some people, seemed to have
eclpsed Pinero's long established lead
ership in British play-making. His en-
emies said Pfnero was jealous, and
even his friends could see in the farce
Of the smileless wife lines that might
apply to the Barrie form of play. A
spoke sltghtingly of the ability nee
| essary to bodybuilding, and a newly
popular sort of drama was referred to
as zone Of those things with neither
beginning nor end" If the Pinero-
ties applauded that as an estimate of
Barrie, the Barrieites were no less
! tickled at accepting alice Sit-by-the-
Fire" as a return dig at Pinero. A
young mother of an almost grown
daughter returns to England after a
long absence, to settle down and sit
by the fire" for the rest OF her days.
| But she finds her little girl so i'm
| pressed with the Illicit love tangles of
problem dramas that she longs to live
a life long enough to seem to become
complicated in about the sort of tri-
angular love affair that are frequent in
the plays of Pinero, and thus gives
daughter a lesson. All this told in the
keen and graceful. If cratic, wit OF
Barrie delighted its first audience In
New York as completely as 1t had some
hundreds in London.
Ethel Barrymore in a role written for
Ellen Terry, who is more than twice as
old as the American girl, if still long
way from three times. was a novelty
that tickled Broadway. Would the
girlish Ethel sacrifice her beauty
and youth to Took the part?' To be-
gin with, this Alice's age was about
half way between youthful Ethels and
the older Ellen's. She was 81 or so. So
no painted wrinkles had to mar the
Barrymore face. There appeared to be
just touch Of gray in the hair which
may have been histrionic powder, or.
as likely a merely lighter in the place
in the generally light brown of the
Barrymore tresses. Our Ethel had
piled her hair up on the top OF her
head, which, OF course, always ages a
woman's appearance. And in her ears
she wore earrings. Her gowns, too,
were of a slightly more matronly style
than our % years old star wears in
her own person. But this Alice, who
sat by the fire, wasn't an old or I'M
slightly woman we should hate our
lovely Ethel for it If she tried to make
herself such.
Henrietta Crosman will have her
cuss word. Without a doubt in her
home life this brilliant comedienne is
TIC 44AO0l dIlu
OF women. But she brought her first
great success to a head, at the close Of
the third act Of Mistress Nell" by
turning upon her antagonists and cry
ing, as she jumped out Of a window,
ITO hell with all of you!" So she made
her new success doubly sure by inter-
polating a damn in the climatic scene.
This Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary is
not really a new play at all. Miss
Crosman has given up advertising it
as such. When she began her tour she
announced 1t, believe, as new play
by Eugene Presbreg." Mr.. Presbrey
has written many, and good ones, but
this MARY" comedy is not his own.
The damn and an automobile are about
all he has put into the familiar Sardou
comedy Of "a Scrap of Paper" And,
with past record as discriminating evil
dence the damn appears to be Miss
Crosman's. So that reduces Mr.. Pres
brey's contribution to the automobile.
1t is only a reference to one, at that,
where the old play used horse. Per-
haps If motors had been in vogue when
Sardou wrote the piece even that
wouldn't have been left for the Ameri-
can chapter.
Miss Crosman devoted herself to sew
eral years I'm repertory stock companies
in Denver and other cities, between the
time she was popular as merely one