The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-04-10
The TheQterS
MAY IRWIN.

!
| should have been the title of the play
which this accomplished comedian and
! her fine company presented at the
| Gennett last evening before a large
! audience.
! May Irwin is dominating personal
! ity.
/ On the stage or off.
| She can no more help centering in
| terest and holding the middle of the
stage than the sun can keep from
shining.
! She is a superlative example OF the
success of the starring system. For
she's born star, not made.
She is not the material out of which
stars are manufactured.
But the natural product out of
/ which they spring.
When you see May Irwin, hear
her mellow laugh and feel the effect
/ of her expansive and radiating smile
you think that, after all, life is
pretty nice thing and that there are
lot of charming things in the world.
The public is indebted to Miss Irwin
for merely living and walking about
on the stage where people can see
and hear her.
If you care to look at it that way,
she performs a mission. AS the kin
dergarten song says-"she spreads
sunshine on the way"
In She Knows Better Now" Miss
Irwin has vehicle for the exploita-
ton of her peculiar histrionic gifts
which might be excelled or even
equalled but which is SO satisfying,
that to point out the plays lack
would be a sort of ungraciousness and
make one out a kind of critical
Crouch"
1t is fact, however, with a less
consummate comedian than Miss IT.
win to carry it through, the play
would fall flat.
For it's plot is so tenuous, its action
so notable in it's absence, its atmos-
phere so thin, that only brilliant stel-
lar qualities of a comedienne of Miss
Twins genius could make it carry
over"
1t concerns the doings of the house
hold of the Tompkins family, made up
of Nicholas Tompkins, taken by Mr..
Arthur Byron, and Mrs. Tompkins,
played by May Irwin, Of Jane maid
and Chesterton, butler, these latter
two impersonated by Katherine Reyes
and Lionel Glenister.
The action hinges on the quarrel
the maid and the butler, engaged to
be married, get into over her refusal
to announce dinner in the manner and
phrase dictated by the butler, who is
English, tyrannical and obstinate, and
with his country's traditions as to the
subsection OF women, firmly anchored.
Guests, Mr.. and Mrs. T. Gordon
Sturtevant, taken by Miss Mary X.
Taylor and Thomas +. Fallon, enter
ing Just after the maid had flounced
out and finding the butler in a state
of agitation, were informed by the
butler as to the state of affairs and
after the exit of the latter, found
themselves in a squabble over the
right of the butler to insist and the
maid to refuse, with the result that
they repeated the quarrel with vigor
and while so engaged, were surprised
by Mr.. and Mrs. Tompkins.
That the latter should also get into
the same wrangle was the logical re-
suit of explanations and the first
act finds Mrs. Tompkins departing
for Europe and her husband taking up
his abode at his club.
Returning home Mrs. Tompkins is
discovered unloading sundry objects
of sartorial adornment struggled
through for her friends, and, in her
detailed to compel her to disgorge,
gives the piece de resistance of the
play.
| Arthur Byron, seen here earlier
in the delightful, if short-lived comedy
Thy Neighbours Wife, made an adj
mirable foil for Miss Irwin in the
character of Tompkins. Byron, in
deed, is one of the most diverting and
skillful comedians on the American
stage, and in the minor role he played
last evening, was irresistibly funny
and exquisitely amusing.
Mr.. Hugh Jeffrey took the part OF
Dunbar" the special agent from the
custom-house with what might be
termed admirable histrionic control,
resisting the easily-succumed
tation of caricaturing the role and
combining it within its consistent linn
its. For this a theatrical 'brava.'
The smaller parts of bogus Ger
man baron and a German maid were
we'll cast in E. E. Howenwart and
Muriel Hope.
In the second act Miss Irwin delight
ed the audience, which recalled her
again and again. with some of her in
imitable songs, the occultness of her
comic spirit" being demonstrated in
them, if possible, more illuminatlngly
than in the straight theatres
Miss Irwin carries her own musical
director and the program given under
his supervision was an enjoyable fea'
ture of the entractes.
The settings were effective and the
whole production presented with
eclat.
Miss Irwin has not been in Rich
mond in several years.
II is honod the next interval will