The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1909-01-12
Louis Mann, in New Role, Moves His
Audience to Tears or Laughter at viii
AS John krauss" Comedian
3. Reveals Himself an Actor
of Great Power.
Vesta Victoria Adds to Laurels
in New and Catchy Songs
at the Lyric.

xXTE who saw 1.-THE Man Who
w Stood Still at the Newark The
atre last night had d new i'll
sight into the histrionic power of Louis
Mann, whose place as an eccentric
comedian of particular worth was es-
tablished long ago, but who has just
disclosed his ability to sway an aud
ence from laughter to tears and back
again, as he willed. In Johann Krauss,
the old Swedish watch and clock re-
palrer, who came to the lower East
Side of New York when a young man,
established his shop, n from then on
stuck 10 the traditions, ideas and
methods of his father and grandfather,
lmperVious alike to the hustle of the
great, moving world outside his base
ment windows n the lively opposition
of his up-to-date rivals, he. has given
US a new type !clear-cut and positive as
the lines of q. cameo, which equals If
not surpasses anything he had ever
done.
Louis Mann is a master of dialect.
His misplaced verbs and droll enuncia-
ton appeal instantly to his hearers,
whether he's talking his ~favorite
broke German-English, or French, or
Swedish, as in this latest effort. In
THE Man Who Stood Still' he has
shown us that he knows how to play
upon our feelings along Warfield lines,
and he does it we'll. The old watch
maker, clinging to his early beliefs, in
spite Of the pressure from all sides of
the modernism that he hates, bravely
hanging on to his little aims and
hopes, only to see them wrested from
him in the end, makes a direct appeal
to u sympathies, even though we
realize that he's as far wrong as his
relatives make him.
In the hands of a less able player
thar Louis Mann the character would
make little impression, and the play
none at all. The plot is simple and not
particularly new. Johann Krauss is a
Widower, living in a few rooms back
of his little shop with his daughter
Marie and his sister Katrina. Marie
is in love with Frank McFerguson, son
of his rival in business, the prosperous
Martin McFerguson across the street,
who in turn is casting soft eyes at
Katrina. Now, Krauss has an old
friend, Edward Spiegel, whose two
children, Alice n Fred, have been
playmates of the little Marie all dur
ing her childhood. Krauss Spiegel
wish above everything that Marie and
Fred would marry. Marie elopes On
the night of her birthday with young
McFerguson, who goes through a mock
marriage ceremony with her, the va
lidity of which she never doubts.
Krauss bitterly ~denounces his daugh-
ter, and casts her off forever. -Four
years later we find her in the home of
the Spiegels, with her child. Krauss,
bent and broker by grief, comes in to
play pinochle with his old friend, who
hopes to effect a reconciliation. During
the game M~cFerguson enters, leading
his s~capegoat son by the ear, and de-
mands to know the truth concerning his
relation to Marie. Marie confronts him
and learns to her horror that the mar
riage ceremony was only a trick. Her
father goes from the house to his home,
resolved never to visit the friends upon
whom the Insult of his daughters pres
| ence las been cast. Six months later
his attitude is broken by Marie's little
daughter Emma, Everybody finally for
gives everybody else, Marie consents
TO marry Fred Spiegel, and all live hap
Ply ever afterward.
Not a wonderful plot, to be sure, but
made effective and entirely plausible
by the fine acting of Louis Mann His
dialect and grammatical mistakes are
just as absurd in the pathetic scenes
as in the funny ones, but he has made
Krauss himself so real that we cannot
tl.lk of laughing at a wretched old
mans errors. One of the most effective
bits is his portrayal of the old mans
grief, or the night of his daughters
fight. The other extreme is reached in
the duet scene between Krauss and ais
old friend Spiegel. and in that side
splitting pinochle yame. reports of
which came to us ahead of the play
itself.
Robert A. Fischer convulsed his audi
ence as the irascible Spiegel, whose
rage knew no bounds when he heard of
his own daughters contemplated we'd
ding, and who vented it in a thousand
and one petty ways, in a dialect that
grew more broken as his anger in
creased. A splendid piece of character
| work was the portrayal of Katrian