The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-21
MISS ROBSON'S NEW BILL.
PINK AND BLUE COMEDY Plus
RDRAB TENEMENT TRAGEDY.
TIVE Able stage Pieces. UndistinS uished BY
Originality, Give scope 20 m Actress
Power Company % Much Variety n
Excellence --warncr and he Bellevtlle.

Excellence -Warncr ana DE belevtne.
striking contrasts last night In her new
bill at the Liberty. BEGINNING with q
dramatization from Jerome X. Jerome
a pink and blue Offering Of popular senti-
ment and comedy OF the kind in which
Mr.. zanGwill has made her f~amiiar-she
ended with "A Tenement Tragedy which
treated a story Of a somewhat expurgated
Josephine Terranova som distance after
the manner Of Mrs, Fishes Little Italy
The old order of Hamlet followed by
Box and Cox was inverted with q VEN
geance.
There can be no doubt, however. that
three act comedy and one act tragedy
proved equally potent with the audience.
Miss Robson. played Susan in Search Of a
Husband with her familiar and grateful
~buoyancy and her keen sense of life and
emotion. and che rose finely to the search
ing OF sordid pity and horror Of the after
piece. She was assisted too by a company
OF really extraordinary range and certainty
Of skill, perfect in the ensemble as in the
individual performance. Altogether a
memorable evening. though by no means
q great one.
The comedy. rather skilfully dramatized
from a short story by Eugene W. Presbrey.
centres in the somewhat complicated beings
n doings OF two young couples in the
living room OF a Welsh inn. Susdn is really
an American girl. but the ~exigencies of the
plot make her first a c~hsmbermaid- bsrmaid
and then a pretended heiress. The spirit
of Harry Ann and Nurse Marjorie walk again.
The complications arise from the fact
that seven years before she has married a
young Englishman whom she has neither
seen nor heard from since they left the
altar. He turns up. now become a Lord
more walking Of ghosts-and though at
first (strange blindnessl there Is no recog-
milton. at the end of three acts husband
and wife, having fallen in love again, are
made known to each other, II Is not a
~ikelYsfale, but IL is fruitful in serio-comic
complications, and with the help of the
actors proved diverting enough.
Miss Robson PLAYED very charmingly
on that delicious border line where earnest
merges with jest. She had less than the
as many as or more than she has since en-
joyed. II il perhaps a pity that her rare
n distinguished individuality should be
spent in such endeavor, but in the present
case at least the public is not likely to
feel any regret.
As the Internationally casual and in
credibly forgetful Lord RGthboHc Mr.. II. r..
Warner went "A touch beyond his by no means
undistin guished performances of the past.
Manly, easy and innately well bred, he
played the comedy and the sentiment Of the
part with unfailing ~ineness and spirit.
Adequately 70 praise the rest of the com
psny is to name them all.
As SusdR's ti~irtatiOusly sentimental
friend, Miss Isabel Irving was more youth
full and charming than ever, and, granting
her rather emphatic and elaborate DAILY
method, gave a skilful performance. Ada
hun onA LAInN IlaN nwn.ansAI ~ I
parts with finish and spirit. Ernest Main
waring lent personality and humor TO a
sympathetic silly ass OF a rather conven-
tional pattern, and A. {. Andrews played
the local constable with all the hufnors Of
DogberrV.
Perhaps the most varied and unctuous
performance in the play was the inn eeper
of Reuben a. Like everything else in
the play the character was conceived not
all in the vein Of reality and altogether
in that of conventional make believe. Iut
Mr.. Fax gave substance, nuanCe and con
viction TO the type. His dense supersti.
tons and his ready sympathies, his ancient
and his youthful sentimentalities
came out a perfect blend. while his crlsty
was iTresistibly infectious.
In the afterpicoe, by ClotIlde Ora yes,
Miss Rol son was the Cockney ward of =
pair of Italian organ grinders-who had
adopted her to take the place of the mon
key. deceased from starvation and eX-
poSure, n later had driven her of even
inGs to the traffic of the streets. A COcknev
lad, having rescued her fro n the strap Of
her padrone, has married her. The play
opens with the wedding feast. progresses
to the discovery Of the girls enforced
and n with her numbering the
padrone.
The piece lacks at once the strangely
poetic atI o phere OF Little Italy and
The logic oil IL development and end II IL
At once distressing in theme and intirm in
technique. But 1t gives Miss Robson
fora very fine bit of tender and poig-
nant emotion. One elieved in the essen
tial innocence Of this Tind and in her great.
love for her new hust and. In a
letter play the performance would have
the effect Of greatness.
As the young cockney husband Mr..
outdid himself. The performance
was rich in detail not untouched by imagina-
lion and of extraordinary intimacy and va
riety Of shading. Ada Dryer played his
mother, and Emily Rigl the wife of the
very ably.
The padrone was Frederic de Belleville,
who. it will be remembered, was tho baker
husband in Little Italy" His scope was
here, but he rendered the unctuous
hypocrisy and cunning ~maligpancy Of the
old villain with the same intensity Of realism
which he then displayed.