Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-02-27

Goodman" fonndAa5N 5NDCIplay ID by Jules Eckert
rSentIt TrgSement Charles Hopkins Broad street
Jim Hawkins (every eveninr) ,,rs uo,,i,.
Tas, MS, Hawkins .................,. Lucy Garne
Squire Treawney; tdrInnI Lark dSlIor Tayor
Eli cI Jones Pa THE Captain Jack efSI RoseeisS waen
PSw Pew ,os charles e Hopkins Hopkins
cap,sln Flint his parrot HerGsyt sy tnssf AshsS9
GeaTTn GGSTEan No.r,:: GecrEe Manning
Israel Hands ',''', .. John 5Shp m RRffrs %itns
Sailors 'SFRRs Vii}Ssois pirates SsaTIs stc Hopkins
ACT The Admiral Benbow Inn. Act 1.-THE
quay at Bristol. Act IiI-scene /. The His.
banloa at anchor on Treasure Island scene
ff,v?cksde fvsd Scene T. the Hlspsnoa 'ad adrlft. ACT
spygasss Moln,aIS she Plratss sGs cam SGamP Scene 2
stevenson would love this Not Just be-
cause Dramatist Goodman has refrained
from doing the smallest bit of violence to
treasure Island Not because Long John
silver shivers his timbers all through and
SHOWS a curiosity about the color of his
enemy's insdes. Nor because the pirate
parrot captain Flint" rides Silvers should
der even though he doesn't cackle, pieces
or eight pieces of eight" Nor because
blind Pew's cane comes tap-tapping on the
frostbtten ground outside the Admiral BEN
bow. Nor because the black spot turns
out to be just as terrible thing on the
stage as 1t was in the book. Nor for all
that hair-raisng first act and tho pig
tailed singing seamen' that decorate the
rest Of the piece with their piratical motley.
No. Stevenson would respect this Treas
ure Island for those things, but not love
1t. He would love it for all the hundred
bits of funny little theatrical details that
crowd the last three acts. Here is his
pocket playhouse. his paper-cut-out thea
tire, his "penny-pain and tuppence-col-
ored" of furious alteration Contemplate
the vest-pocSet inn. the Sypglass, on the
quay of Bristol, which must expand like a
spygass when you get inside, for it holds
a dozen pirates as If by magic. Consider
the cap-pisto noises of the 1intocks in the
stockade. Smell the burnt powder in the
auditorium. See the Broad's awful Dane
ing Master curtain billowng while wind
machines whine behind 1t and the footlights
lightning in front. And THEN. The His
PAMELA, brave little toy boat that 'once
held a crew of twenty and now has trouble
accommodating Jim Hawkins and the two
pirates, tossing and Topping on the cloth
waves with a nice green calcium casting ur
the shadow of the mast and climbing jim
| and the pursuing pirate onto the sky! Stev.
enson would weep with joy, the joy of last
nights audience, which had at last found
the perfect pirate play and the perfect prod
| uction. Everything, from ruddy, riotous act.
| ing to sudden dawns and preciptate moon
| lights was in the right key, the perfect key
| the only key. Here was the playhouse
| divine word and diviner unreality-tht
| playhouse personifed.
People wrote criticisms about the penn,
| plain and tuppence Colored"-Stevensor
| more than any. you may be sure-but dir
| they have anything to say about the act
| ing? We must break with tradition
| however to give a wo.d for Charles Hop
| kins's CHASTITY Pew. Herbert Ashton's unctu
| Gus Silver, John Rogers's lugubrious Merr.
| and S. A. Meharrys sneakng Black Dog
And a word, too for Mrs. Hopkins's jim
| Hawkins Any one of US would like &
see a really-truly. very-good-eddie Ernes
! Truck doing that boy, just as almost any o
| us would like to see Treasure Island
| of romantic realism. But Mrs. Hopkn'
| gir-boy is the right sort of nero for
| tuppence colored, just as a tuppence coloret
is lust the right sort of production for
nitrate play born in that theatre Of Mr.. Hop
| kinss, which is called by the high ant
ancient title, beloved of youth, the Puncl
| and Judy. IL. NJ