The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-04

A fitting finale to brilliant theatrical season at the Jefferson theatre was the presentation at yesterdays Matinee and evening performance of ''The Passing Of the Third Floor Back" an exquisite piece of dramatic writing, conceived by Jerome K Jerome and visualized by the great English actor, MT. Johnston Forbes Robertson and an excellent com pany of players.
 At each performance the audience was composed of brains and breeding, graced with the refinement of artistic instinct A. distinct tribute to the always clever management of the popular playhouse, and at the same time to the esteem and high regard in which MT. Forbes-Rob- ertson is held in the minds of apprecia- tive theatre-goers
 The tribute to MT. Forbes Robertson was absolutely deserved, for he 1s the highest representative of dramatic art on the present English-speaking stage; an actor of rare presence, and still rarer in tellectual pre-eminence; possessed of sympathetic temperament. generous and choice: a consumate technician, who lllumlnAteS WILL bltdt iSies "ANNS'S SA he touches, and is among the "chosen few who presents incarnate. the magic of our English tongue
 Nor is his dramatic genius confined to the impersonation of his own distinctive roles. for he is so truly the artist, that he encourages and permits his fellow actors to be artists also and he creates A setting for His own pre-eminence In ina finished perfection of the Ensemble.
 MT. Vincent Brown, one of the greatest of English novelists wrote recently of him:
 II have seen many dreary actors Of late. and they have sent my imagination longingly across the water after Mir. Eorbes-R R Robertson. He is wanted in Eng land"
 But "the plays the thing" In London "The Passing of the Third Floor Back" encountered the praise of the critics and the generous support and applause of the public, and this attitude has been repeated forcibly, in America, all of which is easily explainable. | The play is frankly an Allegory;" a 1 .Morality," in fact a worthy following g to "Everyman.' which prompted it. | It is based upon an idea. however, crudely and colorlessly expressed that is so fundamentally sound and sweet, as to
 reach down in the heart at once, for it
 involves the purest and gentlest of all human attributes-"the worth of human
 kindliness" of that force which makes
 fer the 'betterment," of ourselves and
 others-for which our friend, MT H. q. Wells, has revived the fine old word Goodwill.
 1 The scene is a boarding house in
 Bloomsbury, London; refuge as it were, | for decayed and dubious responsibility
 a sort of home for stray human dogs and l cats of both sexes, who under a rapaci-
 ous landlady,sspit at and snarl and fight
 with each other with mutual contempt.
 Into this vapid and venomous atmos- phere enters "A Passerby" (Mr. Forbes
 Robertson), whose sympathy and kind ness of heart discovers some latent good in each and all of the people assembled
 under this incongruous roof, and he fos- l ters it into activity, until his own spirit of unselhsh service for others is com
 muncated to them and harmony Is weld ed out of chaos.
 One by one the discordant atoms of the 1 queer "menagerie'' fall under the spell of .The Passerby," who has been as-
 signed back room just below the Sec ond Floor
 1 He is the incarnation of all the pre-
 cepts that we hug so snugly to our hearts
 assuming then in theory but ignoring Men"-and Tt is Better to Give than to
 Receive'-and other such trite and un- practical copy book injunctions. 1 This is effected by a series of duo l logues between The Passerby'' and each