Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-18

some of our best people in prominent
part of the house. the count, declares
his love, but pleads its futility and begs
Angela to wed the prince, his happy
alter ego. To this reversal of John
Alden's famous method, the princess
rather incredibly succumbs, but re-
stores our sense of the probabilities
Immediately by yielding more readily
to the irrepressible personal pleas of
her visible adorer. There is the sound
OF voices, and to escape the royal fam
lily, who are coming to dine quite al
fIesco in the open air, Angelina and
her wooer climb a tree, continuing
among its thoroughly practicable
branches. They are hungry, and in a
spirit of delicious Jest the cardinal pur-
loins for them the cake from under the
table, that love may have physical as
we'll as spiritual sustenance.
The discovery which follows by the
king, queen and dowager is a delight
fully ludicrous climax, bringing down
the curtain on an act which we are
surprised to remember has contained
little or no action of the sort one ex-
poets to hold the attention,
The last act shows the discovery OF
the incognito prince hiding in the royal
armory, where he has gone for good
by visit to Angela before revealin~ his
Identity at the formal betrothal. He
has been surprised into admitting the
fact of his deception to her. although
not revealing it's nature, and Cupid
seems to have scored one on the car
dinal when in very transparent anger
'she warns to the idea of marrying
Prince Victor to spite the count" But
on the arrival of the chief of police
(who seems to have stepped from those
pages Of Sherlock Holmes devoted to
ridiculing Scotland yard) the cardinal
Is forced to reveal the identity OF the
prince to prevent his arrest on charge
of attempting to abduct himself, con-
ceived by the fertile brain of the civil
functionary. The last act shows us
the throne roor~, and Angela, who was
not present at the preceding revelation,
advancing to meet the prince. OF
course she recognizes her puzzling
lover. and of course she falls into his
arms, very submissively. The cardinal
has won, and the gigantic kingdom of
Arcacia is saved from war and all its
inconvenience to sovereigns-and peo-
pie.
But this is not quite all of "a Royal
Family" nor perhaps the best of 1t.
One must not forget that faint fra
GRANGE of romance without dishonor be-
tween Father Anselm and the princess,
his pupil. a gentle tenderness guessed
rather than revealed and made imper-
ishably delicate by the sending of the
priest to a monastery to escape the
consequences of his betrayal of the
reyolutionists to whom he had sworn
fealty before taking his vows to the
church. There is also the beautiful, If
IRA ational idea of royalty sacrificing its
human rights to spare it's subjects war
-preposterous and utterly ignoring the
sacrifices Of it's subjects that 1t may
exist, to be sure, but still a kindly no
tion. agreeable to our stage sense OF
the fitting and readily digestible for the
sake of the illusion of the play. And
there is an adequate scenic setting and
some well balanced acting, all of which
aid in a generally satisfactory produc-
ton.
Mr.. Hartford was an august monarch
and, apparently, a modern one. We
believed him when he said: las often
as possible the king switches off the
fierce light that beats upon throne.
There was a certain rugged humanism
about him which reconciled the sons
Of our revolutionary slres to his curt
orders and regal ways-which were not
half so offensive, by the by, as were
old Ready Money" Ryders. But lie
was a financial king, and heroic
Which is illuminative.
Mr.. Bennett was very democratic
prince, but then he was incog, and love
levels prince and princess into lover
and sweetheart At times Mr. Bennett
played without much apparent interest
in his lines, and even his wooing, ex-
cept in the bigger moments, was often
rather perfunctory. When least en-
thusiastic, however, he was still ma