The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-02-06

tanglement Of other persons in the
snarl.
Somerset Vaughan is a FTohman
author, Billie Burke is a Frohman
actress, and Vaughan has written into
Mrs. Dot a role that fits Billie like
the mOdish gown she wears. Lolita
! CrabJree's celebrity was before your
theatrical time, likely, and 7 can't
name a present resembling mixture of
naive ingenue and saucy soubrette. To
/ incite jealousy in the lover whom she
dOtes on she makes believe to pursue
the disdained wOman-hater like a girl
satyr. What with the nicely of Billie.
the wit of Vaughan and the drOlleTy
Of Fred Kerry, an actor brought from
/ London, the encounter makes the best
/ of the cOmedy's fun.
/ The fat old bachelor eludes the hugs
! and lodges the kisses of the dainty lit
/ tie widow; and she is so insistent that
| he thinks her in earnest; whereupOn
/ he turns upon her with a pretended
| outbreak of real passion. It fools her.
/ She believes that her mock endeaT-
ments have reused a libertine to mad
/ ness and is scared to a panic. 1t is a
/ travesty of a weak girl versus burly
villain in many a melOdrama. Kerr
| chases Billie around chairs and tables,
/ holds her struggling in his arms, and
| her lover, coming to her rescue, is so
| jealous at last that he begs to marry
| her
/ This Vaughan is the English Clyde
Fitch in his deft way of delineating
women in comedy uncOnventionally.
/ Mrs. Dot is a creature OfteneT come
| across in reality than in mimicry.
/ Fitch used to pick out an actress for
/ his every heroine as soon as he had set
I tied on the type needed. and l am told
/ that Vaughan wrote this latest of his
/ pieces with Billie Burke in mind. She
I is Mrs. Dot to a T. Five pounds more
/ of flesh would make her too heavy. \
/ tone higher or harsher in her voice
/ would CRATE on the listeners to her
aUdaciOus talk. A perceptible trace Of
senSuality would render her coarse. For
| in the course Of the play she declares
/ her real love TO one man and her bogus
/ love to another; hugs and kisses both in
/ genuine or imitation zest; and not
many actresses, even with a hundred
| times her skill, could do that and be
| agreeable with it.
1.-THE Inferior Sex"
! 1t is a coincidence that. the beauti-
/ fully brunette Maxine Elliott, like the
prettily blonde Billie Burke, appears
I q
witcher Of a man who hates women
| generally, but falls down before one in
/ particular-or at least a particular one.
! They get together aboard a yacht in
midOcean, where moonlight makes
ripping cleaning path across the water
| from the vessel to some faTaWay
realm Of Joy. Their encounters of
caustic wit, merging steadily into SEN
timent, constitute the delightful new
comedy of The Inferior Sex" which
introduces to us Frank StaytOn, an
English dTamatist, and restores our
own Maxine Elliott to New York. The
little fantasy is witty ana joyous
alive with youth and merriment and
romance. If you insist on the strictly
reasonable in a play, don't go to this
one But if you care for a trifie very
like a cool, laughing breeze in summer
time don't miss it. The title of THE
Inferior Sex" is derived from a book
that a woman hater is writing to exc
pose feminine inferiOrity. He has come
alone in his yacht for a long voyage
so as to suffer no distraction by that
sex. But a very beautiful embodiment
of it is picked up half-frozen, almost
starved, in a drifting eatboat.
That is Maxine Elliott, and Arthur
| Byron, hate her as he may, has to
up snarling at her. The two are the
only persons on the yacht, except a
valet and the crew; so the whole play
is their wrangling-the mans belief in
his hatred of women: the woman's
delight in playing with him, teasing
him, making him prove himself wrong.
| Of course, he ends by loving her. But
Stayton shows q new freshness Of
humor and invention in keeping off the
conclusion without a moments tedium.
The young woman is a writer Of f1c-
ton, and after her first fear, she be-
gins to enjoy the situation hugely. But
she feels more should happen. She de-
cldes the crew should mutiny. They
are so well paid, their hours are so
easy, that she has to search haT lit
erary recollection for a provocation.
OF course-the kegs Of brandy beneath
the cabin floor! That's always the In
centive. And the bags of gold in the
lockers! Unfortunately, the crew
does get enough liquor-though from
cut-glass decanters and the like-to try
mutiny But their object is the beau
tiful girl She, however, thus comes TO
find the woman hater something of
hero-while the audience stays to find