Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-02-27
Columbia.

The selection of Washington as city
for an early representation OF the new
play. THE Curious Conduct Of Judge
Lagarde.' was propitious. The Capital
city Is the home of Investigations, and st.
Elizabeth's is just across the river. AS a
literary work the piece which Messrs.
Victor Mapes and Louis Forest have pre-
pared from German source for the use
of Mr.. Wilton Lackaye displays fine fin
ish both in diction and the creation OF
vivid pictures whose imaginative appeal
is SO strong that they subdue the cold
logical sense with which scientific phe-
nomena, such as are involved in the plot.
should be contemplated. The role OF
Judge Lagarde is finely acted by Mr.
Wilton Lackaye, and the cast contains
several figures of marked Importance In
the development of the performance. nota-
BILE among these being Miss Dorothy
Shoemaker. as Amelie Durval, the girl
who bewitches the digniiied and respect
able judge when he involuntarily changes
his identity and goes out for night In
the slums.
AS series of stage pictures involving
thrilling situations with one or two
hairbreadth escapes that would do credit
to melodrama in its palmiest days. the
play makes a gripping appeal to interest
AS the lucid exposition of a definite. theme
ii takes too much for granted with refer
ence to the laymans offhand knowledge
of psychopathic phenomena. The layman
is quite excusable for not being fully
equipped to grapple with so abstruse a
subject in a manner that will enable him
to accept one of its most intangible theO-
ries as the premise for this elaborate
philosophic demonstration.
The story may be succinctly told. Judge
1-agarde is an emphatic opponent Of the
theory that subconsciouS ego may
obliterate the actual identity Of q human
being to free him from moral or
Gil fv fny rfy1ofr oil Of
Judge Lagarde is himself seized with at
tacks which wholly separate his natural
self from the desperate he becomes
by night These attacks are due to
shock, both nervous and physical. He
leads a double existence whose trails are
kept separate with an experiences which
would tax the skill of the most proficient
dealer In aliases, and is finally cured in
an instant by the physician who succeeds
in merging the two identities at the
moment when the metamorphosis occurs
The tax on unscientif1c credulity is con-
siderable, and the authors have not taken
pains to provide physical circumstance
common to general knowledge to assist
the imagination of the spectator; such,
for instance, as the adulterated drug in
DIR. Jekyll and Mr.. HYDE" or hypnotism
and prenatal influence in 1.-THE Case Of
Becky"
The sentimental interest is not directly
worked out. the attachment he forms in
the Partisan dive being made so pictur-
esque as to suggest pathos in its termina-
ton, and the engagement of the judge
to the sweetheart of his rational self being
hurried rather percipitately as the Sc
quence of his cure.
Mr.. Lackaye has in this play role
more nearly approaching the memorable
portraiture of Svengali than anything he
has done since Trilby introduced him as
brilliant possibility among American
stars. His domination of the cast Is so
complete that it is almost overwhelming.
hn n1rrfaf IN Ind
spoke to the audience systematically,
but kindly.