The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1909-10-03

minds one of Nat GOOdWin'S di5gruntled
return, a few seasons ago, to farcical
comedy, because the public had once
again manifested its insistent wish that
he stick to funmaking instead of the
heroic. In the less conspicuous cities
he slipped in. as a curtain raiser to
the frivOlity of the evening, q very
tragic little affair called THE Man Who
Makes Them Laugh" The real laugh
was that the fctionaI incident showed
very profoundly how miserable and
wOeful is the heart beneath the jOllity
of the comedian. \ crackerjack comic
fellow is the hardest possession for the
theatre public to retain. Crane so pas
siOnately prefers to be Serious that only
the real seriousness Of a great business
falling off sends him back to fun. Louis
Mann is happieSt when sad. Francis
Wilson compromises TO occasional sober
One-act pieces in brief connection with
full-lengths of farce. But the examples
are too numerous to recount.
The most serious thing Sam did in
connection with The Girl and the
Wizard" the new play written for him
by j. Hartley Manners, was his failure
10 squelch the report that in it he would
challenge comparison to Warfield in
THE Music Master" Then. during re-
hearsais and by easy degrees, songs
were slipped in; choruses, a prima don
ma, finally show girls. The result was a
sure success; and with it some regard
for the Bernard ambition. He had two
or three scenes of sober and appealing
sentiment, but he had many, many more
of delightful drollery, Of the most ire
sistible humor. He played the serious
passages Well-but it would not be diff
cult at any time to secure an incOn-
spicuous actor quite as competent TO
play them. The laughable scenes he
amplified and delivered with d natural
sense of humOT, humanity and art which
would be impossible to suFpass-if, in
deed, to match-in the comic stage of
the universe.
THE Girl and the Wizard" suffers
from prolOgue-and I happen to know
that before the theatre was aired after
its huge and gIittering first night au-
dience, the question under managerial
discussion lay between the choice Of
cutting it to a couple of minutes or am
putating it altogether. A good deal that
could have been told in a few words
was acted in full in TyrOlean glen,
which lacked romance i'm its setting
quite as totally as Manners exposition
of young love lacked romance i'm the
telling. That over, we settled down
or, rather, sat up-tO two acts Of pretty
songs, Of gay dances, of agreeable senti-
ment and of hilarious fun. The impe-
cunious and rascally old count would
not let his daughter marry the hand
some hero, because he saw himself
Weather as father-in-laW to the mil
liOnaiTe called the wizard because of his
ability to transform the most valueless
bit of rock into a precious stone.
AT night I keep my jewels in the ice
box" the wizard explained. Then I
turn a calcium light on the safe 50 any
thieves that look in can't miss it."
A play of his has been acted once. The
kindliest of critics said, We shall not
look upon its like again" So the wiz
ard engages a stranded opera troupe to
give it a second performance, Just to
make that fellow a liar" He engages
a large company so half Of the players
can sit in front and make a gOod-siZed
audience. The heroic tenor loses his
voice at the last moment, so Bernard
has to take his place. Need 1 say more?
Two weeks after seeing The Girl and
the Wizard" one hardly could disentan-
gle its plot and incidents from those of
a lifetime of musical farCes. Yet as
surely as the play is without the slight
est novelty, just as surely is it rOllicky,
good, clean, cheerful fun.
I said to Mr.. Manners" Bernard ex-
planned in a between-acts speech on the
first night Why don't you write a
play for me-?
Why, people would laugh at us
we'll was the teTse and typical
Bernard reply.