Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-01-25

dInd IN MI ilJCs --4hlo o. ONf UtDbVs
No, indeed Never! Even though
polvenna swears that the Bible holds
The record with 500 admonitions to be
glad.
No one was ever so glad as Pollyanna
a. thoroughly, dutifully, impeccablS
iod as that glad child" Here Is q
sat, ssort,sI catalogue of things she is glad
sbout in Miss Cushing's play, not to mem
uon Mrs. Forter's two books. Pollyanna
Is
and S"H ieit her to her dead mothers sister in
New England. ,,,.. ,,s OLA, - ro ,,,...
ana Spdl glad d her SSs a1nss beautiful il not loving
Glad, they used to send crutches nstea d
S %otSer SSi!' exicd herself to do penante for
@ to to Se oSf able TS 10 sS Sh9 Sorry fdr Aunt Polly
she ,S Tonan q os s1k to her he Doc
saiher for preventing their match
Glad she has frecklcs Instead of warts.
]c TSdSs E6sc Pos cs % Hg yeos hmf
she'il be so much gladdGr when she gets in
,..S eSd JqnR might eRG0B Be Br6ESn SS leg
Glad that she gets her own legs out Of
tme trTe' that she's got John Pendleton and Aunt
Polly and Doctor Chiffon Into loyable frames
S5ont mlhq run ontSpt because Aunt Poly is at
last moved to call her dear, and t9 kiss her.
EysR ysarcS EaS Of that She Rrus n@ an
John Pendleton in Act III. turns out to be an
entirely respectable Boston arstocrat by
"A And glad of course; oh, tlckled to death,
Which, needless to say, takes In the manage
ment.
Frankly, "Pollyanna" is just that sort
Of a play. People like 1t the way they
liked 1.-THE Man From Home" and Peg
O. My Heart" and Daddy Long Legs
just about the same sort of people They
like its theatrical naivete. They like the
yarn about how the two sisters loves
were blighted by stern parent, and how
one girl married n Missouri missionary
and bore Pollyanna as n penance; how
the other wouldn't speak to her lover
through 20 years of loving spnsterhood:
how one man continued to adore from
afar, and how that other shut himself up
as a select sort of hermit in n very ele-
CANT house. They like Jimmy Rcan for
being a sure 'nough orphan, and they
like him better still when he turns out
to have just as complicated lot of jeal-
ous-hearted aristocratic parents who put
him in an asylum somehow or other for
some reason or another They like every
body to be kept in darkness for five years
as to Pollyanna's possible recovery.
They like, in fact, to find a good old
fashioned play with all the things that
have made Barrie's dear Theatre" Just
what 1t used TO he. And of course,
they like this psychomedical mysticism
about gladness and miracle working.
They even like to believe that those
strange people out in the long dark
streets of the slums have something TO be
glad about, too. Perhaps it's the movies
Pollyannas formula can be applied to
"Polyanna." The critics can be glad
about 1t because it is going to repair the
fortunes of George e. Tyler but most of
all because it let's us watch Patricia Col
hinge do the monumentally artistic Job
OF getting away with all Pollvanna's !
gladness Miss Collinge's work is really |
noteworthy She is youth She Is radi-
ance itself. She is the very spirit OF
selt-conscious gladness. She makes her /
seit girl in soul as well as body She |
turns all those difficult, sugary sentences !
30 that not drop too much syrup gls- |
tens TO the SlisteninG eye. She handles |
preachments and apotheoses with a
childish grace that redeems them. And !
sne @ calls up terrible visions of what |
Polyanna" would be with some pert
young person making points"
The supporting cast is more than ad-
niifaole. 1t Is eXtravagant. With its
aid optimism becomes almost as seductive
As pessimism and threatens to be far
pe permanent dissipation with ma
'ority of playgoers. X. NJ.