The Washington herald., 1918-06-18
The Belasee-sshe Burned Her
Efnaeka0


He made Virtue blind several sea-
sons ago. Now he IL making her
brazen and hideous. Next seasan.
doubtless. he will make her posi-
lively disrespectable. '....
she Burned Her Fingers" Mr..
Hamilton's latest play. revealed at
the Belasco last night, is as thick
with inferential and raised eyebrow
Interrogation as q poison gas attack
in Flanders. His new comedy ought
to be farce. and 1t Is. although Mr..
Hamilton doesn't know II.
The playwright proves that q mod
ern young lady Of exuberant vital
ity." can amuse herself by visiting
the rooms Of roue at midnight, can
adopt q mock husband and tuck her
self In bed in his presence, can 60 on
three weeks mock honeymoon.
and yet look Mrs. Grundy squarely
In the eye at the finish.
Mr.. Hamilton comedies that the
formula is accompanied with certain
risks and dangers. but contends that
1t Is not impossible. particularly
when the Lady in The Case has a
brazen-ness that even a Baraesque
vampire might envy. In this we
agree with him. 1t Is not impos-
| sible. but 1t is q trifie weird. almost
uncanny-particularly when the dra-
| matte demonstration of It possesses
not one-tenth of the cieverness
| which made Tea For Three" such
delightful near-naughtiness, for
example.
II She Burned Her Fingers" were
Partisan and frankly. cleverIy
| naughty, We might find q saving
grace in 1t. But it isn't. 1t is SOL
emn. with that awful Anglo-Saxon
solemnity that goads Shaw into
| frenzy. 1t reveals the hand Of a
platitudinous, half-baked Puritan
dealing with the sex problem. Mr..
Hamilton writing plays reminds us
of a deacon Of the church reading
Havelock ELS. His fat-footed wit,
his blunderbuss dialogue, his general
heaviness all contribute to the fear-
someness OF his brain child. Even
his impossible characters might not
/ be SO impossible il handled properly
But he doesn't give them half a
chance.
1t is barely possible that Mr.. Ham,
ilton Is a satirist. and Is keeping the
fact all to himself. He may be seek
! ing to show US the devolution of the
generates and becomes an utter cow
ard when Mrs. Grundy cracks the
whip. Or he may be trying to prove
that virtue Is some sort of a game
at which the modern girl can play
and cheat recklessly and with no
more penalty attached. perhaps, than
a love scene at the finish.
1t is unnecessary to recount the
cast which tries to galvanize this
curious production into some sort
OF vitality. However. IL there was
any method calculated to make the
character of Beatrice Vanderdyke
more preposterous than the play
| wright intended her to be. Estedlle
Winwood found it Her hard, cool
style, her knowing" glances and
colossal sophistication. served to
accentuate the abnormality of the
young lady in question. Warburton
Gamble played some scenes well in
the role OF Pelham Franklin. and
others not so we'll Some of the
lines which fell to him were gro
tesque. Norman Hackett, Thurlow
Bergen. Kate Blacke. and the other
members OF the cast did their work
far better than the piece deserved.
NationnI-sPack Up Your TroubIes.'
Sergt Arthur Guy Empey, Of over
the Top" fame, made his opening
bow to a Washington audience last
night as an actor. In a box to the
right OF the stage sat the President
OF the United States and the COM
mandant OF the United States Marine
Corps.
Pack Up Your Troubles" Is the
more or less prosaic line that captions
three acts Of propaganda of a sort
that is not calculated to drive out
OF the propaganda game the Bureau
OF Enemy Psychology in Berlin. 1t
is the species of propaganda that
should pack a house in a factory
town, but in Washington last night
rather distinguished audience
smiled tolerantly at it's jngoistic
lines and grew restless under the con-
slant effort to sublimate the Ameri-
can private at the expense OF his
junior officera
The play is credited to George c.
Hazelton. One discerns in the plot
the guiding hand of Sergt. Empey.
Wagenhals & Kemper are the pro-
ducers, and for producers Of expert
ence they seem to have turned a fine,
fighting soldier of democracy loose IN
the tangled mazes OF a strange and
exact art of which he has only nat
ural adaptability.
The idea of the play itself is the
basic idea underlying Americas
preparation for war-the melting pot.
1t seeks to show how Second avenue
and Fifth avenue have drawn nign
to each other and have come to real
ize that each has its respective loves
and fears and ambitions. Sergt. En-
pey. however. declines to let Fifth
avenue triumph over Second avenue
on any plane whatsoever. Always the
son Of an Irish washerwoman tri-
umphs in his every undertaking and
the patrician son Of fighting stock
merely does his bit:
There is one bit of ineXcusable bad
taste in Pack Up Your Troubles"
1t is the constantly slurring assaults
upon the lieutenant as an officer. A
lieutenant is the villain of the play
a charming young fellow who tries
with all his might to look and ac,
like a villain without tho slightest
success-and he is pictured as a man
who would steal a soldiers sweet
heart and as a man who ever seeks
to degrade and debase the private
and the noncommissioned officer.
One cannot indorse the situations
thus created and Sergt Empey will
do well to eliminate a sentiment
which is trying to the American prl-
vate. who likes discipline none too
well, even as a matter of necessity.
Rose Stahl, an actress of note in
other plays, appears as the mother
of the Irish soldier-hero (Empey), and
for the sake Of other memories of
Rose Stahl one gently draws a cur
tain over her part.
There Is one bright spot in the
action of the piece that glimmers