Los Angeles herald., 1908-02-11

Red Kelly ............... Joseph De Grasse
Slattery observation-disclosures. Harry Spear
zones ':;.;..''''''.'' MI. Whe stsHA.
Happy Stokes. .......,...... Harry Glazier
Benny Sanderson. Miss Dorothy Bernard
Bob Carter. .............. William Yerance
Bill SandersOn. Hobart BoswOrth
hed Pepper. .............. George bernard
Bell Boy ......,............ Elmer Clifton
BY sIDLE LAWRENCE
IN HERE is an old story of young
woman who attempted to bake Il
batch of bread. The dough was
mixed, the loaves carefully fashioned
and placed in an oven. When they
came out the young woman discovered
that the finished product, while it was
good to eat, bore only a distant fam
lily resemblance to the staff of life.
Being resourceful, however, she pre-
pared sauce and served her loaves
as cottage pudding, thereby winning
much praise for her skill in the Gull
nary art.
Something of this kind seems to
have happened to Mr.. Edgar Selwyn
when he wrote 1.-The Energetic Mr..
West" His first act is farce, his
second and third western melodrama
and his fourth act comedy drama. The
dramatic cottage pudding has some-
thing the appearance of marble cake,
| butts good to eat unless you hap
pen to be afflicted with critical dyspep-
STA, in which case there is no hope for
| you anyway
The central figure of 1.-THE Energetic
Mr.. West" is our old friend BERTHE, the
| Lamb, in new predicaments and in
| new surroundings. The girl-there are
two of them, but The Girls a cousin
fraN % -.
a New York society girl with a manag-
| ing mamma.
BERTHE Is ForgetfuI
| In the farce West is engaged to
marry the society girl, but forgets all
about it and permits her and her friends
| to await him at the church while he
| takes a little stroll in athletic toys,
for the benefit of his health. For this
peculiar exhibition of amnesia BERTHE
| whose name, by the way, is Percival-
is shipped west by his justly indignant
father, together with a certified check
for $4,000 to give him a start in the
| world.
| In the melodrama Percivars troubles
| begin. He arrives in Colorado. con-
| signed to an old friend of his fathers,
Bill Anderson, sheriff of Spread Eagle.
! Bill chances to be away from home at
the time, and Percival is promptly an
nexed by two mining sharps, who sell
him a sailed claim for the full amount
| of the check. The stage on which
Percival was a passenger has been
robbed Suspicion falls upon him and
| he is about to be lynched, but is saved
by Big Bill and Big Bills diminutive
| daughter The Girl. All this happens in
the second act of the play and the first
of the melodrama.
Then, in the next act, it happens all
/ ny 1ty lynch Ia w a nd
the west are synonymous terms in Mr..
| Selwyn's vocabulary. For the second
time a rope is placed about PercivaPs
neck for the second time he is given
the opportunity to say few words of
farewell, and for the second time the
! lynchers are stood off, by Big Bill
and the girl and by Percival himself,
| until the psychological moment has
! passed.
Returns to New York
In the comedy drama Percival West
returns to New York, taking with him
| Bill Sanderson and Bits daughter
| There, in a reception room of the st.
Regis hotel, after some difficulties, he
| succeeded in convincing the young Wo-
man that he really meant what he said
| in the melodrama when he told her:
There are two kinds of girls, the other
| kind and your kind" and the final cur
Miss in Bertie's arms
The chief fault of the play, as I see
it, is the paucity of invention shown in
| the repetition of the lynching incident
| The third act lynching is the stronger
Of the two. The other could be cut to
| advantage. 1t is asking too much to
expect an audience to thrill twice in
the same play over the same situation.
Then there is this curious feature:
| n,,f Of ho IF nhqra Ot ere
| only one appears in all four acts and
only three in more than two acts of
| this four-act play. AS result the
story lacks continuity and its interest
| is not properly cumulative.
| Yet. even with these faults, 1.-THE En-
ergetic Mr.. West" has good possible
ties. It's central idea, properly pre-
sented is perhaps sufficiently strong
to carry the play to success. There are
excellent opportunities in its name role
and in some few of its western char
acter types. AS for the fasteners,
they are conventional folk from whom
nothing out oe the ordinary is to be
expected.
Company Not at Its Best
The play is difficult to cast, and it is
small reflection upon the Belasco play
ors to say they do not always get all
out of their roles that the playwright
intended John DAILY Murphy plays
Percival West and Dorothy Bernard
is cast as The Girl Neither of them
has succeeded in getting under the
surface of the characters they por-
tray. West. however, is an exceeding
ly difficult role to realize. The man is
| a product of artificial living set down
| in surroundings wholly foreign. to his
habits. Long study is required to keep
him in the picture, and it is not sur
prising that Mr.. Murphy has failed in
his attempt.
| The best characterization last night
was that of Hobart Bosworth as the
sheriff. George Barnum's West senior
| is a well considered portraiture: and
good bits are contributed by Harry
Earl as a Chinaman, William Yerance
as a stage driver. Joseph De Grasse as
Red Kelly and Howard Scott as
miner.
Herr Fischer has good show in
1.-THE Land of Gee Whizz." The COM
edy is amusing. the musical interpola-
tons are we'll sung, so far as the prin-
cipals are concerned, at least, and those
same principals can act--and do. The
chorus works hard and there are pos
sibly half a dozen goodish singers in
its ranks but there are some girls In
the merry merry who would be bet
ter elsewhere.
But the show is funny. There's a.
plot to it that doesn't matter much,
save that it serves to introduce trio
- f,,un, a Il era-TIerh BELL Billy On