Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-01-04
War and the English Actors

~ - stAA~t VII A-fAh t5AAoAA A~eCAe
Over in England the war has thrown
thousands Of Relsian refugees into 9
labor market already too full OF compe-
iiiion Tor the satisfaction OF anybody but
an empioyer. over here in America the
English actor Is doing about the same
thing for the theatrical labor market He
= here by the score. with stars of his own
race and American productions. A whole
musical comedy--wbich In the ordinary
course OF events would have been pro-
duced Mt Daly's in London this winter
has been brought to America for its
premiere.
A good many players are protesting at
this Hood OF competition. And while the
fnanager-like Brer Fox-'lay low and
amt sayin' nothin'," some of the English
sectors are defending themselves.
w. Graham Browne, now touring with
Marie Tempest, has written to an actors
club in answer to the complaints voiced
there that the English players deprived
ct an audience at home, had shirked the
defense OF their country to come and take
the bread from American mouths.
Mr.. Browne makes the excellent point
that the call for the first million volun-
teers was for men under 3S and unmar-
ried For the rest he depends mainly on
the argument that II the English
actor went off "Baily' TO war he would
leave q penniless wife and family to
starvation behind him. He doesn't OBJ
Herve that men have done as much for
what they imagined was the need of theh
country; he doesn't remark the still Bit
terer fact that many men in England
have gone to war to escape that starva'
ton But he does state the plain human,
unavoidable facts OF the case in the ques-
tion; There are literally thousands of
actors out of work, and IL they turn to
g. Itwr.I L. a.
be wondered at?'
Picadil1y at the Front
There are some English actors at thu |
front. If not in very great numbers.
Against the literally thousands" of Mr..
Brownies players that Mr. Browne es-
Inmates are out of work, the London Era
reckons that there are $50, Including
vaudeville performers. at the front. Rob.
ert Lorraine, the only really distinguished
one among them-and not 80 long ago an
american actor-gets into the news every
now and then with a wound achieved in
the aerial service Lewis Casson, who
worked under B. Iden Paige, of the Little
Theatre, when the local producer was
with Miss Horniman in Manchester, is in
the Army Service Corps. and there are
many more whose names would be
strange to Americans
Many of the actors still In England are
tin Harvey delivers recruiting addresses
on Sunday evenings Il. r. Benson, among
others, has Joined the United Arts Force
for Home Defense.
Potash and Perlmutter in England
Produced in London some time ago,
Potash and Perlmutter'' has reached the
provinces. where the Manchester Guar
dian writes of It:
''The entire gamut of small advantages.
nigGling economies and petty astutenesses
is run through. Little here of the imagina-
tion and grasp that makes the Colossus.
One left the theatre last night with
sense of the pathos of small successes,
with ones mind barking back to a Jewish
Samuel Smiles, a Jewish Doctor Watts
and swarms of infinitely Jewish and in
hniteIy indefatigable bees
''Of plot there Is very little, and we do
not propose to detail II here. Sufficient to
say that the play is a good deal more than
a comedy of genial ruse and llght-hearted
chicane, of an extraordinary deft and
supple with expressed in an intensely ex-
hlarated idiom of the extreme of Jewish
unction. Both of these men have eyes
and ears. in the old Jews phrase as
other men have, only they use them for
the enjoying of life with a greater zest
and a completed gusto than their more
brethren. There Is something
OF the artist in them.
They are at heart great gentlemen /; or
1t least. the auction market and the
salesroom contain none greater. The play
Is instinct with all that loyalty to their
own people. that innate sense of home
and family that love OF morality and
honor and straight dealing which are
20 characterlstically and tremendously
Jewish"
Douglas Fairbanks as Bad Actor
The New York critics have vindicated