Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-03-04
New National.

| Billie Burke, joyously girlish and vi
brant with that intangible quality known
as magnetism, made a new Washington
record for herself last night at the Ma
tional Theater in Arthur Wing Pinero's
comedy. The Mind the Paint Girl" In
which she has scored her greatest sue
| cess.
The plot, English in setting and the
atrical in atmosphere. concerns the pri-
vate life Of Lily Parradell. the ''prin-
cipal girl in a London musical show.
She is just coQuettishly buoyant
young person. whose greatest triumph in
her profession has been the hit which
she has already made in The song which
gives the play it's name and which she
sings at the supper dance given at the
theater after the play by the Pandora
Girls and their aristocratic 'Johnnies"
in honor of her birthday. With all the
phases of temperament that go to the
making of a popular star of the Pan
dora Theater," and with admirers by the
score. Lily Parradell is a good girl. in
the literal meaning of the word, and
there Is something even better than
goodness in the nobility with which she
refuses young Farncombe's offer OF
marriage because a Pandora Girl is
not fit wife for a lord
AS she tells him Of her humble birth
her words picture as wildly as a motion
film the small grocery shop in which she
was born. the place where she pasted
gilt edges on passe partout' at five shil-
iings a week, and every other pitiful little
step in her progress that has led her to
the Pandora. The confession" followed
by her outbreak Of indignation at the en-
trance Of Capt. Nicholas Jeyes, who has
loved her for SO long that he has become.
as the girl says, "a habit" are the two
great moments in the play, though Miss
Burke is enchantingly gay or weary or
nonchalant or pathetic. and always dis
tractingly pretty in every situation
throughout the four acts.
The Pandora chorus girls were as
gracefully airy as thistledown and as
playful as kittens. each with an individual
charm of her own. but with all the merry
jubilation over Lilly Parradells birthday
and her prospect Of marrying a title,
the play, in word and spirit is of the
spontaneously wholesome character Of
Pineros comedies, and comes near being
his best.
Shelley Hull as Lord Farncombe is all
that could be desired Of a manly young
fellow who wants to marry the girl he
loves regardless of her position, but H.
E. Herbert. as the army officer who has
given up his commission to be near Lily
and has degenerated into a 'loafer and
cad" gives such a genuine impression
Of suffering that his volcanic outbursts
Of jealous rage and unjust suspicious
gained last night the appreciative recog-
milton that an audience generally re-
serves for lovers. Ethel Intropidi as
Jimmy Birch is refreshingly attractive
as Lilys chum, and Lydia Rachel, as the
girls mother was entirely satisfying
though it seemed hard to trace any fam
lily likeness between the cockney brunette
and her white blossom Of daughter.
Miss Burke cannot be otherwise than
captivatingly piquant. but she outchal-
lenges her own charms in her latest play.
q fact which was attested by the en-
thusiastic recalls made by an audience
that filed every seat in the house.