New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-09-23

: Book" The play is set forth in a
room in Hamlton's house-Hamilton
alone and his wife in France; the visit
of jefferson and Monroe to win him
for the site OF the Capitol in the
South. Hamiton's barter OF their help
to his measures TO make the nation
assume the debts of the states in ex-
change for his aid to them; his seduc-
ton by young woman in the plot;
the charges against him and his full
revelation OF private wrongdoing rather
than have harm come 10 the measures
meant for the public veal. 1t is com
monplace enough, this tale, the echo
Of hundred boudoired scenes from
the past. But it is the manner that
saves it, from Mr.. Arliss to Miss
Eagels, who plays the pretty enchan-
tress with a no mean wit.
Yet will Mr.. Arliss forbear if I say
| am curious to see him some day
again on the stage dressed in the less
colorfUl and artful but more cool and
rational styles of a present day-evcn
with play to match.
u UT Of honesty again there IS a
- surprising store. Witness 1.-The
Scrap of Paper" at the Criterion The
atre, which is so naive bit OF car
pentering for the stage and so full
blooded bit OF POUNDS and "od's
blood" brought up to date that it will
while away an evening for ever the
that only those strange ones who go
to the theatre 70 find so stupid a mat
ter as consistency and logic will sleep
through "A Scrap of Paper Frankly,
| liked it. | liked the playing with
chance, the uses of coincidence, and
the wider II went of the mark of con-
sistency the better it pleased me. But
again let me say it is all marked by
honesty. There is no pretence by Rob
ert billiard at any more than out and
out melodrama, and as for Edward
Ellis as Handsome Harry" Mack, he
fills me with envy. | could conceive
of no greater relish if such an ad-
venture had TO be mine than TO cross
a crook like him in a bout of wits. The
tale has a novelty that bends itself to
dashing melodrsma.
Messrs. billiard, Whytal and Glass
ford are well set in the stereotyped
mould Of big finance. They would
wrong the play if they we're any more
real than they are. The detectives, the
crooks, the heroes and the various
footmen of the cast are the shadows of
life, moving in a delightfully."- unreal
and joyously inconsistent panorama.
Life may never be inconsistent; what
relief to find melodrama always is!
TINE wit of 1.-THE Family Exit"
l. which the Washington Square
Players have produced. but do not for
themselves present, at the Comedy
Theatre, is the wit of cerebral slap
stick, the wit OF setting things up that
they may be knocked down. AS such
it is not necessarily connected with
the theatre, but holds a place there
by the grace of Shaw. 1t, too, in a
week Which seemed to get along well
without illusions, depends for effec-
tiveness on the chance that the audi
ence may know for sure that it 10
ake-believe. 1t is done in kind Of
schoolboy chatting mood, a sort of re-
fusal to take anything seriously, and
as a method it sometimes runs to seed.
On the whole, however, it comes as a
further light OF intelligence in the
atrical sky so often composed of inky
darkness. Perhaps in the next play
Lawrence Langner writes the me-
chanics Of paradox will be better
hidden.