New-York tribune., 1918-11-03

|
honesty you should make amends for
your msstatement. Moreover, I have
noted from time to time various ref
erences to Mr.. Creel in your dramatic
columns, and believe that most of
them were not of kindly intent. There
were in all eight references. 1t seems
to me that while Mr.. Creel in engaged
in the vital task of directing the Com
mittee on Public Information, which
has been successful in leading the pub
lie opinion of the entire nation, as we'll
as influencing some of the neutrals,
that he should be protected from such
sniping. How can you justify it,"
Very frankly, we can't The Hippo
drome paragraph was an error. The
only possible reason we can offer for
having written "Creel" when we should
have said cardinal Newman" was
some subconscious suggestion. The
mental process in one of the more re-
mote lobes probably went Newman
Apologize Slumming-Creel," and there
you are, though of course, properly
speaking. it is not an excuse.
AS far as the question Of the use
Of Crcel's name in the dramatic de-
partment there is more to be said on
our side. We can't very we'll avoid
that because Mr.. Creels name appears
with great prominence and frequency
IN all the government war films and in
all the posters of the same. There is
one other reason for bringing Mr..
Creel into theatrical reviews now and
again aside from the necessity of the
news. Dramatic criticisms must have
background. We have gone in for
that rather seriously this season and
have mentioned ever so many people
who were not directly concerned with
the production or the performance. In
looking over our scrapbook we find:
Moses, once; John L. Sullivan, once;
Leo Ornsten, twice; William James,
twice; Uriah the Hittite, three times;
Ty Cobb, once; Irwin Cobb, twice; zu-
leika Dobson, once; Zebulun, once; Joe
lie BLANC, once; Alexei Nikolaievitch,
Verstovsky, twice; Bacchus, four
times; Governor Whitman, once; Gaius
Marius, once; Robert Fulton, once:
Martin Luther, once; John Collins
Snaith, once; President Wilson, three
| times; God, once, and George Creel,
! eight times.
We were almost prepared to accep.
Bertha Kalich as an actress of the
highest rank during the early part of
''The Riddle; Woman" because she gave
such an interesting performance in
spite Of the somewhat lurid nature of
the play. But then there came scene
in which her husband suspected her
and sought to test her fidelity by
! looking her straight in the eye.
"Now don't blink" he exclaimed sud-
| denly.
AS a matter of fact Miss Kalich had
forgotten to blink at all, but no sooner
/ did the suggestion come than she tried
to make up the oversight by winking
both eyes as rapidly as if she had q
cinder in each. However, she remains
an interesting actress.
Variety" by the way, thinks that
the play will be q success because "it
possesses a novel character, that of
a male vampire"
The following comment from "Va-
riety" in regard to Peters Mother"
! is also interesting, "For the very rea-
son that it is very human and true
to life, Peters Mother is bound to
be morbid and unpalatable Not all
the pessimists are Ibsenites
1t is bit SNUG to go on pining for
a universal artist as long as we have
Charlie Chaplain. He is the one strand
that links the intelectuals and the
masses. Mrs. Fiske applauds him;
"The New Republic" analyses him; and
our furnace man can do very pass
able imitation of him. He is Chariot
to the French and Charlie Chaplin to
the Japanese. Powerful associates in
his comedies may set upon him, but the
sun never does.
We think it beyond debate that Mr..
Chaplin has real spark of the fire
which never dies. We know people who
do not like him, but some Of them are
hypocrites and towards. Only the
other day. we lunched with a man who
has two growing children and expects
to be president of bank some day.
II took Harold and Katherine here
to see Charlie Chaplin the other night"
he explained.
How was it?" we asked
Simply atrocous," he replied,
silencing an interruption by Harold.
ut was piece called Shoulder Arms"
my friend continued. 81 have never
seen anything sillier in my life. There
is one scene in which Chaplin is
camouhaged as a tree. A big fat Ger
man with an ak comes over to cut him
down and he hits the German over the
head and renders him unconscious"
There was another German came
then, wasn't there, papa?" piped up
Harold.
"Yes," said my friend, "another Ger
man came over to see what had hap
pened and Charlie laid him out, too.