The Washington herald., 1918-12-30
shubert-BcInsco-.sryc,


Stuar. Walker. late of the Por-tnnaD-
teau Tfeater, and now a producer to
De reckoned with. even in the COM
h'erclal purlieus of Broadway. has
Hone for Booth Harrington a service
wh!ch that distinguished reaIist ha.
frequently failed to do for himseIr
IN seventeen that inimitabIe
Iarklngtonian Portrait OF the pain
lulness OF puppy love" Walker has
given US one OF the best genre pieces
which the theater has seen since TIE
DAYS of George AIDES The County
Ohalrman and that celebrated COM
edy was favored with a burIesgue
quality which is entirely absent from
the delightfully."- realistic study OF
types presented at the Shubert- -BeIa~-
CO last evening.
There is hardly a trace of theatri-
calism in this piece; il has the same
sketchy, unforced, artless quality
which was the chief distinction Of
the dramatic version of "Penrod." re-
veaied TO Washington last summer.
1t is rare bit of grace that both OF
these brilliant vignettes Of boyhood
should have reached the stage with
out the faint of ordinary theatrical
clap-trap worked into them. Realism
as that word is commonly understood
in our leading circles of the foot
lights has nothing in common with
the kind of stun that Harrington has
given us in the creation of the i'm
mortal Penrod Scoheld or the hardly
less vividly realized figure Of \, illiarn
SylVanus Baxter. whose deliCIousiy
funny growing pains in stepping
from boyhood Ito manhood furnish
the whole warp and woot of this
unique comedy OF Seventeen
Pigs is pigs" as Ellis Parker But
Ter iterated. and boys is boys by
the same token. But il is one thing
to portray a boy through the ordinary
stage conventions-to give him the
surface touches of roality-and quite
another thing to reveal the spiritual
essence of that strange state Of mind
when boy is no longer boy and not
yet man; to do something else than
accent his gawkish eccentricities. or
hurlesque his consuming love affairs.
In seventeen we find the note of
the fidelity and sincerity which MAKE
the commonplaces of life endurabIe-
complete absence of that theatrical
mode which uses trr comic mask as
camouilage for spiritual barrenne.,s.
However. this is getting far aficId
from the business in hand, which is
to say that Gregory Kelly and the
other members of the cast gave an
excellent performance of a memora-
BILE comedy at the Shubert-Belasco
last evening. We wonder whether
Gregory Kelly. did not make too SOL
emn. too perplexed. too lOve-s.ck
young man in his character. whether
he did not submerge the boy. with his
abundance of animal spirits. to an
unwarranted degree. That is our only
Interrogation over the remarkable de-
lineation of character which he gavo
in the role of William Sylvanus Bax-
ter.
Lillian Ross was delightful as the
younger sister, Jane: Ruth Gordon
made the baby talk lady" Lola
Pratt almost a new comedy type: Neil
Martin. Fred Strong and Ben Lyon
played three boy parts brilliantly, and
Judith Lowry as Mrs. Baxter made
one of the best mothers we have seen
on the stage in many a day. There
was hardly misfit in the entire cast
Oversentimentalized and glucose
comedy has done so much to per-vert
the taste of American audiences that
much of the distinction of this quaint