The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-09-19
Not Maidens, But Widoys Are
 Heroines in NeUest of PLays

bridegroom of words and not or deeds and a caricsture of a nobleman for the one 10 subsequently, cultivate the garden full of weeds." you may have seen already, for Lillian Russell made long tour last season with this play. calling It The Butterfly" The role is now amplihed for Grace Filkins with more variety of feeling than her predecessor could be asked to express ana the whole play pleases Broadway. Previous farces, comedies and operas based on this idea have varied betwixt polite suggestiveness and fla grant indecency in the course of the mock honeymoon. Grace Fiikins doesn't have to be worse than rougish- " piquant as an unytelding bride; and eventually. as usual she gets to lov- Ing the husband disdaining the other man and desiring to turn the mar riage from sham to reality. The man hired by the American widow to be her husband in words and not in deeds ts. the composer of an opera, and he wouldn't accept either cash endow- ment or allowance in payment for the Job; but when she offers to put his play on the stage. he can't resist the temptation. Their dickering over the bargain and their pickering over the adherence to 1t. are amusing with nu- morous incidents. It seems a pity that the theme is stale. Why does a hen cross the road?' is as good a joke as 1t ever was. People are tired of It. that's all. The plot of this play Is as good plot as 1t ever was. People are tired of it--thats all. If, for ex- | ample. I mention that the author is a brother of c. Haddon Chambers, the prominent English dramatist, 1t would be as true a fact as it ever was Peo- Na1 IN1 A..~
 etition--thats all
 When Francis de Croisset and Mime. De Cresac revivtfed the matrimonial complication in the comedy done into English for Marie Tempest as "rhe Marriage of Kitty" the touch was light. airy. suggestive. Chambers seems incapable of suggestion. He does not woo the half smile. but rather the whole guffaw. By sn accident, the widow Is standed in a country house with her utility husband. who as per agreement. left her at the altar. Also in the bungalow are the lawyers In charge of her property. and they suspect the second marriage is but a trick. Also in the house Is the earl she purposes marrying: and. for final complications a prima donna who hopes to win the mock husband when he Is divorced. A Frenchman or an Austrian would have treated this purely theatric dilmma with lightness and intimation. Chambers thinks Of nothing but beds. They are as en- grossingly and exclusively on his mind as fall house-cleaning with the conventional housewife. And when the uninvited husband and wife finally re- tire to the same bedroom the curtain necessarily falls to a guffaw-or nothing.
 Hilarious "RevelIers"
 The widow in "rhe Revellers' is greenly grass grown, although she believes her husband Is sodded un Ter and so. being young. pretty and blithe she goes to beefsteak dinner in the cellar of a restaurant. It be- gins at midnight and is meant to last till daylight. according to custom. but 1t stops short In the third round of broi1ed meat and foaming beer. The hilarity Is noisy and frisky. The ex- tremes in feminine conduct are the grass widow. sweet and gentle. and a soubrette, loudd and audacious Among the men. the range Is from the good fellow who gives the supper to the very worst profligate in a very bad assemblage. All are now alike in state of gorged exuberance. and are singing ditties of nonsense at | the tops of their voices-all but the little widow-when she quietly quits the room. You have read in Roman history how that the ancient glut- tons at their prolonged repasts re- tired to empty their stomRchs by means of emetics and returned to fill them up again. I won't say that the widow went out for that purpose. al- though 1t wouldn't have taken much of a dose for nauseous admiration by the bad man has sickenei her al- ready saw that her object was to rid herself of him and not of the steak and ale she had swallowed. He was drunk enough to construe her flight as an invitation to pursue. So he sneak ed aftre In a minute or so she scream ed for help. When the original version of '"rhe Revellers" was put on trial in Wash ington. last summer. the loafer huRged and kissed the grass willow in sight of the people. among whom was MT Taft in a box, and he already uneasy under the revelry. now showed his dis approval by leaving the theatre. As newly arranged here. with the assault transferred to an adjoining room. you ] may go as far as you like In imagin-