Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1914-01-11
MAUD: ADAMS
Has OLD SKILL,
ASSERTSCR|T|C
New Play From Whimsical Bar
rte Shows Her Charming as
Ever She Was.
By ALAN DALE.

NEW YORK, Jan. 10.-Suppose-I
asked myself as l sat at the Empire
Theater last night-suppose-ju
suppose-that you were seeing Maude
Adams for the first time In your life;
that YOU had read all the foolish
adulation lavished u1on her by Alan
Dale (for all adulation is foolish) !;
that you had formed impressions of
her charm and her magnetism, and
you were there uninitiated, seeing her
for the first time last night-what
! would you have said?
I asked myself that--and I really
| waited until the end of the first act
| of J. NJ. Barries comedy THE Leg
end of Leonora," before I answered
the question. 1t was an easy an
| swer. l should have said exactly the
same last night as l said when l saw
her in THE Little Minister" Not one
whit of charm and irresistibility has
been lost; not one iota of the strange
power that gets over the footlights
| has vanished. Not one pang of the
controversy which makes Maude Ad-
ans personality one of as many cons
| as pros has been eliminated There
che was last night, just as she al
ways has been, full of exquisite faults
| and delicious un-great- nesses, and
! highly delectable delinquencies, and
| there she was last night, walking
| away with all your sympathies, in
spite of yourself, just as she walked
away with those Of the jury, and the
attorney general, and the counsel for
| the prosecution, and the counsel for
the defense in THE Legend of Leo
| nora"
The road" has returned her to rs
| just IS she left US, and those who ex-
| pect OF find a mannerized a hardened
and a less diaphanous Maude Adams
! will be beautifully disappointed. II
; the road can do all this for star, let
a lot Of them take to the road, and
! take to 1t quickly, and not hurry back.
Last night Maude Adams touched
with her gentle art, her winsome
manners, her strange and eerie fascl-
nation, the light, whimsical aand I'M
substantial frolic of James NJ. Barrie
(which wasn't a play and wasn't a
monologde, but which kept us all
laughing continuously at its Gllber-
tian absurdity and It's topsy- turvv
| righteousness. There was at least
one laugh in every line-sometimes
| two--not a tired business mans guf-
faw, but weary theatergoer's mar
rows chuckle. Oh. 1t was good to
get this kind of laughter, that oozed
from ones cardial vertebrate and kept
on OOZlHS.
But, remember, it wasn't play. and
many tired business man will say
| "Silly," and eposterous!" and
whats the good of It ALP" But we
are not all tired business men, thank
Goodness! All the intelligence isn't
dead all the wit in the world hasn't
dried up in the furnace of buffoonery,
| We can still appreciate gentle satire
and indolent 1utps.
/ Just because Leonora's little girl
! had coda sniffy cold-she want
! ed the window in the train closed.
| There was a horrid man who wanted
! It open He couldn't bear stuffy trains.
| POSSIBLY If you've travelled in Eng
| land YOU know the wretch.) But Leo-
! nora told him her little girl had a
sniffy cold. He must have the win
| dow shut He wouldn't So she gave
him a push, and he fell out of the
door on to the line, and was killed.
And Leonora was a murderess!
And Mande Adams was just Maude
Adams. She played as she has al
ways played, and that's saying
enough. Never once did she even ac-
knowledge the audience or step for
an instant from the picture. She was
the personification of charm and
magnetism