Los Angeles herald., 1908-12-29
STONE COMPANY
IS HOME AGAIN.
BELASC0 BLACKWO0D PLAY
Frs IN "THE FASTENER"
AUDIENCE GIVES ENTHUSIASTIC
WELCOME TO FAVoRITES
Playhouse, Redecorsted, Is Packed.
Lewis Stone Compelled to Make
an Address at the End of
the First Act
BY LEMUEL PARTON

nome last GNHIluB-IlOlil6 " a. llAlCh6l VI
roses and a nice, newly decorated play
house and a host of old friends, and
put on a good show and everybody was
happy.
I'VE are glad to be home ogain." said
Mr.. Stone simply at the end of the first
act, when the audience insisted on his
making a speech. His hearers seemed
glad too, and the box office the glad
dest of all, and that was about all there
was to it. Incidentally the opening
show of the new elasco-Blackwood
company is 1.-THE Fastener" The play
was written by George, Broadhurst, the
author of 1.-THE Man of the Hour" and
is finished and symmetrical example
of play architecture. The combination
of the Stone and Belasco companies has
resulted in an exceedingly strong and
well balanced stock company. Last
night there was a note of bland felicity
to the whole affair which made every
body glad they had come. One of the
highest compliments that can be paid
to the production is to say that there
were no stars on the stage. Each
player held his own place with an
! exactness of relation and nicely of adj
| justment that made the whole a strong
and artistic production. The Belasco
plays always show a faculty for detail
| in composition-the quality of genre
picture. The Stone company has at
tanned that rare degree Of excellence
and unconscious cooperation that leads
each player to supply his own part in
the whole without attempting that dis
tressng thing, from an artistic point of
view, to play any one part so finely
that the other parts lose their place in
the whole by comparison. Lewis s.
Stone is characterized by considerable
mental and emotional reserve, and the
plays which he dominates are notable
in suggestion, delicate shading and
above all in artistic and technically
finished composition.
The locale of 1.-THE fastener" is in
California. A young man is falsely ac-
cused of the murder of a man by whom
he has been discharged. The business
of the playwright is to exonerate him.
HE didn't do it," says the girl who
loves him. OF course 1t is perfectly
obvious that he didn't do it, but the
problem is how to get him out of It.
and the audience gets its moneys worth
and goes home happy.
Lewis S. Stone appears as very
personable and altogether irreproach-
able easterner, with nice, shiny puttees
and modish riding breeks, giving an en-
semble similar to the rear elevation of a
big Wishbone. Mr.. Stone photographs,
but he also interprets His characters
always live religiously according to the
Stone ethics and aesthetics, so of
course it is a nice, chubby Richard
Harding Davis hero, with a hint of
big reservoir of strength back of him,
who gets the young man out of trouble
and eventually wins the nice girl.
To give Miss Beatrice Noyes role
requiring anything other than the
charming and felicitous touches which
have made her so good an ingenue is
like putting hollyhocks into Cloissone
vase When Janet faced her formidable
r. H. ALL 1T oh.
would marry Roy, it was difficult to
realize that a really important matter
was at stake.
De Witt Jennings has demonstrated
beyond doubt the wisdom of Mr.. Black
wood in adding him to his company. He
has appeared both in juvenile and in
heavy parts, and last evening, in the
role of Morley Crawford, carried off
the part with effectiveness and yet
without the melodramatic exaggeration
which so often ruins a role of this kind.
Ben Graham is an old and tried fa-
vorite, but seldom has he shown bet
ter than as Ike Robbins, the big, bluff,
misguided sheriff, who stirred up so
much trouble for Roy Stewart. This
same Stewart, impersonated by Charles
Ruggles, also an old Belasco favorite,
seemed to have faculty for getting in
bad, but comes out of it happily. Mr..
Ruggles had a similar role, though less
heroic in Brown of Harvard.
Miss Florence Oakley shared the hon
ors with Mr.. Stone in the enthusiastic
reception given the home corners, and
at the end of the second act smiled her
appreciation over an embankment of
roses. 1.-THE fastener" does not give
Miss Oakley an opportunity for the dis
play of extraordinary histrionic ability
but her Grace Morton was gracefully
and faultlessly done. The character
parts all We're well played-so excep
tionally well played that the effect of
the whole was that of finished and ar
tistic technique seldom achieved by a
stock company.
Society was we'll represented in the
parquet and boxes Miss Lillian AL
bertson occupied box with her hus-
band.
The Ofpheum presents a good bill for
the week, with four new numbers, in
Guiding Miss Felice Morris and her
Story" The holdovers include 1.-THE
Naked Truth" Hall McAllister, the
italian trio and Raymond and Caverly
The three Italians seem to be steadily
increasing in POPULARITY during their stay
in Los Angeles. This week they sing
the 'Miserere" from IT Trovatore' and
"rerantella." Each OF the three is an
artist, and their musical offering is far
superior to the average of such produc-
lions on the vaudeville stage. Harry
Linton and Miss Anita Laurence APP
pear in a frothy little sketch called
Married Now" Miss Laurence and
Mr.. Linton are two entertaining young
persons, but their sketch is too innocu-
Gus to be interesting. The best part of
it is the limerick about the girl who
went out to buy liver, and that took UP
only four lines-the limerick, not the
liver. Billy CASTOR and Miss Ethel
Green provide dash of ginger in their
"Spooneyville" creation, and 1.-THE Old,
old Story is well stocked with laugh
ter
There's a vaudeville team at the Los
Angeles theater this week with Scotch
names, English accents, German faces
and Hungarian uniforms. Seemingly
you take your choice. The team is
billed as the Musical McLarens." There
are five of them, and all five play upon
all sorts of instruments. -Four of them
dance cleverly and one of them sings.
The act is good in the main but is bad
in spots, the spots being chiefly upon
the skirts of the young women, who are
commended to the attention of what
ever cleaning establishment advertises
in this paper.
Perhaps the cleverest act upon the
program is contributed by Pastor and
Merle, a man and a woman, whose
comedy acrobatic stunts are worth a
good laugh any day in the week. The