New-York tribune., 1918-04-08
Drama
An Odd New Comedy Shows
That April" Has
Its Showers

:, April" comedy in three ac+s hu
hubert Osborne; presented bv rS' Cbarloss ns
/ tire. u 'ouS Inca
The Woman Nancy TIE Rnv CAST
sT sr as0ana bSwss wsFs M5sSs FaSne HIfs,, heEs
Her paaFhtsr Nan N.rsaiS esm'Mss stToHs
sr Hsr FF9shS5 Fgiang JACQUES Marn
s HSsdhaSE Hsdass VSE Wo Michael GoFdaa Mo55is
The Strange Gentleman Chares }anGesca drl;ns TItTn
Very Rich Man. Richard Pcmbsrton er ''0p'4'''
His 81, pio. A!phonz Either
Ills Sons Friend Lord Archie pousas ''e''o'Seh
His Footmen Robert Norton Frederek Masponsa
The new technique of scrambled
plays is exhibited in april" After
an act of domestic drama, scenes from
the past and from "the present that
might have been" are injected, leav-
ing unresolved until the end the final
act momentous issue that holds the
audience in suspense. The manner in
winch this is accomplished is skilful,
and the comedy and color of the inter-
ludes are pleasing. Good acting in addi-
tlon by a company we'll suited to their
roles should make the play rank well
up among the recent novelties. 1t is
Eoc dlsparaglng to suggest the posi-
bllity of the author having brooded
over "John Gabriel Borkman." "The
Lady from the Sea- and some of the
current movies before taking hashish
and going into the silences of creation.
AS mere theatrical convenience the
stun that dreams are made of has
been worn as bare as the fingers of
the heroine who worked them to the
bone. but the semblance of more
/ sophisticated form of hallucination
again permits the playwright to tran
scend the walls of time and space. At
the Winter Garden Corbett put his
victims to sleep with q wallop on the
jaw. In Barbara" in which Marie
Doro appeared, the lady tainted and
whacked her head on the fender. "De
Luxe Annie" was a case of dissociated
personality, and in "The Eyes of
Youth" the vision is projected by crys-
tai gazing. A number of other devices
have been employed. In "April' the
clairvoyant trance is due to an over
wrought nervous condition.
There was an air of actuaIty about
the parlor Of John Bowers's house in
a small town on Lake Ontario The
people were real. There were a chip
per grandmother and an uncommonly
pretty girl, brother who teased her
about her sweetheart, a woman friend
of the family whose fance was killed
in an accident twenty years before, and
the mother herself, in state of queru
lous anxiety over money matters that
was aggravated by the prospects of
there being another mouth to feed at
no very distant date. In fact, she per-
sisted in seeing shadow on the wall
that none of the others could see.
The dialogue was somewhat too con
gested with facts just at the start to
seem entirely natural outside of Ibsen,
but once the audience got oriented to
these particulars the plot grew apace.
John Bowers had been hard work.
ing but not successful man. The re-
turn to the little town Of Richard
Pemberton, now mighty captain of
industry. whose suit Nancy Bowers
had rejected in favor of John, pro-
lance at the thought of how different
things might have. been. But this was
not the worst. Richard Pemberton had
long nursed a desire for revenge, and
he now had it in. his power to COM
pass Johns ruin.
The other personages Of the drama
left Nancy by herself. The twilight
sinister wind sprang up. bowling and
whiting disnally. Then it was that
"the spirit of what might have been"
held communion with Nancy; a sombre,
mysterious stranger entered, and in
the most sepulchral tones imaginable,
bade her follow him, which she did.
What was to become Of her or the
family and their fortunes and the plot
itself if she should take walk off the
6ocl hovo0d cOr iect11ra
The dark shadow was gone when the
curtain rose again, twenty years
earlier on the blooming apple tree
that stood before Nancy's girlhood
home. Pauline Lord as Nancy and
Julie Herne as her friend, Alice Per
kins, displayed marvellous capacity
for rejuvenation. They We'd with the
with Nancy's courtship and choice. But
the spirit of what might have been
soon hurried her on to consider her
more hypothetical lot as the wife of
Richard Pemberton Her son was
cad and her husband loved another.
This or Christmas Eve, too! All,
the bitter woe Of wealth. the utter
cussedness Of riches! AS if this was
not enough to disillusion Nancy, she
had perforce to take a peep into the
home of man who. having nothing,
was happy. John Bowers, married to
another woman and unable to afford
mistress, spent Christmastide in the
blessed seclusion of his humble home.
These slices of life that the dramatist
welded so deftly on a single tine of
his fork may be somewhat underdone.
We will leave that to the public to
determine if so minded, which it prob
ably Is not. A. r.
Midnight Revue Opens