Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-02-15
TIE THEATRE
The Two Pygmalions

-. vo,t remember, writes corr
4 fyGnisa',t ,pho saw Shaw's play when IL
a Fssporoents tswonsht to America In German
. Fas 80 Campbell came, was Greek
4 bsfoIe ~ who fell in love with statue
s fensien''s,s fensn ,,sde. and by the power OF love
. tt hs s,,,,ne Intercession brought the sta
tHq y NE. AS far as shaws play goes
.ss s,al Pygmalion is the irving tlaee
. he ~ m New York, and It's actors.
qbea'e.,, in love with the play and made
Hey Tbe company now presenting 1t
i Z ~ h,e.,.,,.deIphia (excepting, OF course
4 b t,.,rics CampbeiD seems to have
VI ,s Iove with its acting, and as
4 itnsn .spvemallon' is like one OF those
ItsuN ,,,y,sn or is 1t an automaton?" af-
" aon sees In shop windows.
iahs a. incommensurable, so there need
~. - oon,nerison OF the ELIAS Gre
~ nv Mrs. Patrick Campoeh ana
49,. Arnstaedt, who as guest-s.ar'
hans. s,,syed the part In this country a
hfst play pS more ago. But the production
yea, rrvinq place Theater and the pro-
.t.per y se here should be compared In de-
aus '., sacause the comparison holds long
~ " hltter lesson for Americans.
sness ~ tbe flrst scene. The Germans
lan rsal rain, they had no taxi, they
~ nlausible scenery. All they had
~ actnra. SO they threw their portico
", had the crowd facing the audi
~. ~ indicated by gesture and speech
NJ the storm was on ana acted SO
..rs,,asl slvely that you couldn't tor MIN
~ doubt that the thing was reaL Anu l
Wy NY. ,ras n reality which all the waters
y ~ New Broad Street rain could not
y .'h away. The sets in the other
,..rss came nowhere near the excellence
s.ha nresent ones. The wonder ot the
e.,rsn y .r performance was that H. got
e,ong 90 much better with what 1t mad
~ a,srt from Mr.. Marlowe, who played
profsssor Higgins, there were no great
.riors among the men OF the German
ecmnany, but their work makes the Eng
ess thrand of acting seem snowy and in
y, Isr.rsiye Alfred Doolittle. in the Ger
~, ~ yersion. was n straightforward low
elss, dustman with copy of something
sy osoar wilde in his pocket. He did
-, act nj the audience: in fact, you dld
not think he was acting while he was
u ,he stage. Higgins and Pickering
w.ys the most casual, the most suave OF
dIrnterested scientists. with leaning
Inward romantic temper on the part OF
higgins. The Eynsford-Hin family OF
Intellectual fiappers was not done with
asslIty to English life any more than
s,.s Arnstaedts accent sounded like
coekney. But they were done with fidel-
which is life itself.
"a the result in the end is two plays:
me played play OF the Germans and the
scted play OF the English. After the lat
ter YOU feel that Shaw has written an
other of his things, with a little less of
hIs particular brand Of politico-economic
can't. After the Irving Place Theatre
Won went out wondering that 1t took
shaw SO long to discover America-the
playwright's America which is the COM
mon stock of human experiences and
emotions But you did not wonder that
4 was the Germans who discovered
Shaw
A No. 2 Company of Cobb
lawyers will be lawyers. One of them
from Cook County, Illinois, has got the
greatest little idea in the theatrical graft
line that manager ever turned down. OF
course, you've heard of the second COM
panies'' that give Keokuk the New York
tuecesses with the original Broadway
cast. Well, the lawyer wants to try 1t on
Irwin Cobb. He proposes to the man.
ayers of that comprehensive lecturer that
they send him out through the Middle
West with a stenographic copy of the
Ear-lecture and bill him as Irwin Cobb.
The gentleman came all the way from
Chicago to Cleveland to talk the matter
over with Mr.. Cobb, and until he tells
The answer he got, the trains east and
vest of Ohio are going to be overcrowded
With managers bidding for the stock
rights to Irwin Cobb. All this ought to
offer a real solution of the Chautauqua-
State Department problem.