The San Francisco call., 1906-05-05
BARRIE PLAYS
KNAv|SH TRICK
Fools the Public
With His Two
New Plays.
Actors Make the
Shows a Sue
cess.

AONOON, Mdy 4.-J6llDGS Al1lSACW
Barrie played a knavish trick on his
readers, who loved him with a kind of
personal affection such as authors rare
ly win, when he fouted them with the
grotesque ending of his last novel,
+" Tommy and Grizel.p And now he
has served his play -goers in the same
way that he served his readers. 1t was
with brightest anticipation that every
one who by influence or money could
get frst-night seat from the Frohman
management, crowded into the Comedy
Theatre recently to see Barrie's two
new pieces, punch and "Joseph-
inc"
1t was reasonable to suppose that
this brilliant audience had assembled
to see two plays; but what they got was
two cartoons bearing the same relation
to dramatic art that newspaper car
toons bear to Royal Academy exhi-
bition. In the first, we saw humble
room, from the rear window of which
a Punch and Judy show was being
given to an invisible crowd outside.
The crowd hooted and jeered, and poor
old Punch and Judy were broken heart
ed to have the conclusion thrust upon
them that their style of entertainment
was outworn. A butcher-boy entered in
the midst Of the sad scene, announcing
that he was "The Public,' admitted
that he had laughed at Punch in the
old days, but said that he was now
bored, and that Punch and Judy must
move on. The premises, said "The
Public' had been let to the new man.
-, 6 D,,h
lic' with his stick and killed him. But
the butcher-boy's remains scarcely had
been removed before George Barnard
Shaw-red whiskers and all (but smok
ing a cigar which the real Shaw doesn It
do)-burst in and took possession. Him,
too, Punch tried to kill, but his stick
merely broke in two over the newcom-
er's head. So Mr. Punch and Mrs.
Judy hobbled out, and Shaw went to
the window and bowed to the cheering
populace outside. There were bright
CLEANS Of fun and imagination and
sentiment here and there, but these
were aside from the main point that an
audience asking for bread had received
a paper wad.
Then followed the main piece Of the
evening, with precisely the same result.
Josephine was political cartoon in
three panels, which American audiences
doubtless never viii see, for it deals en-
tirely with local politics. Suppose, when
the Tariff Controversy was at its hot
test in the United States, the most pop
ular, imaginative and gifted of Ameri-
can playwrights Of the day had taken
it into his head to make drama out Of
the abstract facts Of the situation, with
pretty girls to represent Protection and
Tariff Reform, and young men to rep
resent, say, Blaine, Cleveland and Nc
Kinley in all except makeup, and with
Uncle Sam as the father of the young
men! Well, all one can say is that If
the "play" had been offered by anyone
less than a Barrie, no manager would
have dreamed of producing it, and no
audience could have been found for it,
except in political wigwam. But that
was exactly what Mr.. Barrie did for
England with Josephine"
In this, like others Of Mr.. Barrie 9
recent plays, the whole was considera-
bly, less than the sum of its parts.
" Josephine abounded in really witty
details, ingenuities, bits Of the real dra-
matte stuff, all sorts of incidental de-
lights that kept the audience from be-
ing altogether indignant at the prank
played upon it. And the parts repre-
senting-or rather typifying Chamber
lain, Lord Rosebery, Arthur Balfour,
Campbell John Bull, the
Irish Party, and Free Trade and Fair
Trade, were taken by some Of the
brightest and ablest actors on the Eng
lish stage.
Josephine" in particular, as enact
ed by Dion Boucicault, ad represent
ing the Chamberlain ideals in the form
of an ambitious and masterful old maid
who courts each of the boys in turn,
was no less than masterpiece, thanks
to the ingenuity and humor with which
the actor burlesqued the methods Of the
average leading lady. Whatever real
triumph there was in the play belonged
to Boucicault rather than to Barrie.