Los Angeles herald., 1907-08-27
GRAY LADYA
QUEER PLAY
THE HEROINE is IN LOVE WITH A
WEAkLlNG
PSEUDO HERO is A THIEF AND A
MAN OF PUTTY
Harry Glazier and Miss Stoddard Do
Fine Work In Charming Pol
locks Drama Of WASH
Ington Life

Charming Pollock's play of Washing
ton departmental life, THE Little Gray
Lady" was given its first Los Angeles
production on the stage of the Belasco
theater last night with Miss Blanche
Stoddard in the title role. Mr.. Pollock
is variously dramatic reviewer, pub
licity agent and a playwright. His
Little Gray Lady is little play with
littler plot. The story Is simple.
But four characters are required for its
telling. The others are quite extrane-
GUS to the action of the piece. They
seem to have been introduced merely to
fill UP time and they perform that office
only indifferently well.
This does not necessarily mean that
the play is uninteresting, for it is not,
despite the fact that the plot is obvi
Gus. In short, Mr.. Pollock seems to
have made much ado with very scant
materials. He has given his little play
one big scene, and unfortunately that
scene was spoiled last night by the
maladroitness of one of the three play
ers concerned in it.
"a man made weak by loving;
Then strong by being loved"
This is the playwright's own impro-
vised quotation" to describe one of his
leading characters. The man is a clerk
in the treasury department and his
excessive drink, then to an entangle-
ment with young woman whom he
does not love and finally to theft. He
had grown up from childhood with the
little gray lady" and the woman had
come to love him. Consequently when
she finds him in jeopardy she attempts
to send him out of the country, and
after his departure seeks to assume the
burden of his guilt. In the end he re-
n hut lie
through the intervention of a secret
service man who is hims elf in love with
the little gray lady and whose love is of
so fine a fiber that 1t leads him to COM
pound a felony even when by so doing
he gives the woman he adores to his
unworthy rival.
Mr.. Glaciers Fine Work
That is all there is to the story, yet
the Belasco presentation of the play Is
worth while if only for the admirable
work of Miss Blanche Stoddard and
Harry Glazier, who plays the secret
service agent. Lewis Stone is cast as
the moral weakling. 1t is an ungra-
cious role and one in which Stone is
not at his best. though many of last
nights difficulties were not of his own
making.
There is nothing in the lines of the
play to indicate to the audience that
CARLYLE the weakling. entertains any
sentiment whatever for Ruth Jordan.
the young woman who has persuaded
him to marry her. This same lack is
evidenced conspicuously in the acting.
Doubtless the object is to avoid arous-
ing sympathy for the part of Ruth, but
both playwright and player seem to
have gone too far, the result being an
entire lack of motive for this main
spring of the plot
Miss Violet Rand, who has proved
herself a clever character ingenue in
former Belasco productions, was en-
tirely out of her element last night as
Ruth Jordan and fioundered hopelessly.
Such a woman never could have fasci
mated even the weakling Carlyle. The
man must have been dominated in one
to his passions or by strong and COM
pelling mentality. Neither of these
was at any time apparent in Miss
Rand's work and the result was deplor
able, not alone for her own character
ization but for the others as we'll.
The Little Gray Lady
Miss Stoddard gives us little gray
lady that is easily understandable,
though perhaps a shade too emotional
in the crucial scene of the second act.
The fault, however, was not her own;
and she did her best apparently to
extricate herself from the situation into
which she had been plunged. Else
where Miss Stoddard's work was we'll
up to the high standard Belasco audi
ences already have come to expect from
her.
Mr.. Glazier played the secret service
man quietly, effectively, artistically,
He did not make him a boor, but
neither did he attempt to secure SYM
pathy for the role Always he let it be
seen that the little gray lady was of
more delicate clay; that marriage be-
tween them would be, in a way. mes
alliance despite the pure gold of his
love and of his nature. This idea was
kept to the fore with consummate skill
and with just the proper emphasis
throughout the entire four acts of the
play.
For the rest the cast matters little
The role allotted to Howard Scott, how
ever, has no place in the play and GER
tainly no place upon the Belasco stage
In justice to the actor it should be said
l. Ill ia