The Washington herald., 1916-12-02
Seen and Heard
BY GEORGE MINER.

New York, Dec. IA remarkable
testimony to the memory of an
actor was the meeting of the Harri-
gan Club the other night. This club
was formed shortly after Ned Harri-
gan's death and it holds annual jolli-
fcations to keep alive the songs and
sayings and associations that Harri-
gan endeared to the East Side in
particular and all New York in gen.
eral.
No other manager or actor put so
much virility on the American stage
as did Harrigan or showed the life
among the lowly so truthfully and
conscientiously. In his day and gen.
Grafton, he was rather looked down
upon. mice" people apologized for
going to his shows and sneaked in
to the old Theater Comique, where
Harrigan and Hart held forth for so
many years. But the common peo-
pie" rushed there and the gallery
gods adored him.
And so now, a quarter of a cen
tury after his vogue has passed, he
is the only actor in the country
whose memory is honored by a club
organized for that special purpose
There is no Booth club or Wallack
club or Augustine Daily club. Does
that prove that it is among the gal
lery frequenters that an actors
memory lives longest?
If there were a few Ned Harri-
gans on the American stage today
it would not be so wishy-washy and
inconsequential as it is. Ned Harri-
gan's plays were. really nothing but
variety shows, but they had char
acter and strength and human ma
ture. The variety shows today have
none of those. All they have to at
tract the public with is an abundance
of half-naked chorus girls. 1t seems
to be the idea of the leading pro-
ducers of variety entertainments in
New York that the more they take
off the girls the more they add to
the show.
The recent much-heralded and
elaborate production of "The Cen,
tury Girl" by Dillingham; and Zieg,
field at the Century Theater is a
case in point It's mostly all girls
Just beautiful girls without rhyme
or reason. They couldn't find enough
in this country so they brought over
a score or SO from England. As
an exhibition of female pulchritude
it has any harem that was ever or
ganized beaten a mile.
Sam Bernard is now about the
only thing in the whole show that
isn't really lovely. and he plays a
female part. 1t is the same part
that was played on the opening night
by Miss Dressler whose presence on
the stage lent little spice to the
almost cloying loveliness all around
her. She also slid down a precipice
on her nose and set the house in a
roar. But she only appeared for
one performance. The show was ar
hour too long and in reducing il
they cut out most of Miss Dressler's
part. Of course, she wouldn't stand
for that and quit 1t strikes me that
some of that sweet-girl stuff could
have been left out to better advan-
tage.
This opening up of the Century
Theater as beauty home has had
the effect OF changing the place
where number OF fashionably
dressed, but somewhat antique, gen
tlemen have been wont to take pc
destrian exercise. Formerly, they
walked in the park. Now they walk
alongside the park, in front of the
Century Theater.
The fact that Miss Charlotte
Greenwood has extraordinarily long
legs and arms has made her a the
atrical star She waves these limbs
of hers about'as though they did not
belong to her at all but were just
sticks hitched to her body by hinges
AS she has thoroughly refined face
and manner there is nothing at all
vulgar about it when otherwise there
so easily could be. She is simply
excruciatingly funny.
In small part in a Winter Gar
den show she waved these legs and
arms so effectively that she attract
ed attention. In fact, so much at
tention that she is now the star in
the new musical play, $50 Long
Lefty" I am happy to add that she
has made a success of it and that
the management was wise in select
ing her. 1t goes to show that physi-
cal eccentricities are not always a
detrimcnt, even to young actress
who is otherwise young, pretty and