The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-04-14
rof Srode and His EaceLen Cub "The Bldckfrd"
 The Jnpersiy o Alabama I2egale Birmingham Win Their Ar

bama I spent the summer at Harvard.
 getting the best possible training in
 acting and stage producing at Cam-
 bridge, at the Sanders theatre, ap-
 bearing in several plays in the lead- ing roles.
 q want to say that the Blackfriars
 have been largely indebted to the Bir- mingham High school" said Professor
 Strode. flor much of my best talent
 and material, In looking over the mem
 bership of the past on the The Black
 friars role we find from Birmingham
 the names of Miss Marguerite Todd, Mrs.
 Henry Pitts (nee Minnie Cocke), Miss
 Hattie Montgomery, Miss Helen Tut
 tie. Miss Anita Wa1dhorst, Miss Kath-
 crime Williams; also Capt. Jack Cozine.
 Lieut. Chappell Cory, Jr., Mir. Ralph
 Barrow. Walter Brewer, George O'Neals.
 Clarence Going, s. F. Claybaugh ands
 Lieut.. William M. Spencer, Jr. From
 Mobile we find Miss Marguerita Ligoa.
 Mrs. Morgan Stickney tnee Miss Anna BouleO, Mir. Herbert Fiebleman. Lieut.
 Maiben Cammack, John McAlpine, IT,, while Montgomery has contributed | Helen Vickers. Miss Elizabeth Cole
 man, Mir. l.. L. Hill. IT,, Lieut.. Morris Froelfch.
 Those who have had the pleasure of witnessing the finished plays directed by Professor Strode will undoubtedly en- joy the two which will be presented here , next Saturday evening Professor Strods
 has made excellent selections of the Thomas drama, "IIer Husbands Wife,
 the noted critic, Walter Pritchard Eaton has said.
 The reader will. of course. discover in
 the quaint character of Irene the source of the plays chief charm. Just what we
 mean by style in a drama is not always | easy to say--certainly less easy than ,,fl,l1 essay or novel 1t is a fusion of many elements, of which mere language is per | haps the least important, though it has | it's place, But when we are considering | a farce, q play in which the sequence Of comic incident. the merry tangling of ! plot, determines the type, we may de- | clare that style is or is not present, ac- | cording to the measure of humanity im- parted to the characters. the amount Of ! interest awakened in the people who | figure in the incidents, the wit. delicacy, 1 sprightliness of their speech as well, of course, as according to the good taste and psychological value of these inci-l
 dents themselves. Therefore, it iss hard l to say whether ''The Tanning of tho l Shrew" should be called farce, so far
 toward comedy does it's characterization | lift 1t. And when we contemplate this quaint little hypochondriac, Irene, with | Ter unknown ailments and mystic pills. especially as she was depicted by that capital comedienne, Laura Hope Crews,
 we are again hard put to say by just | how much Her Husbands Wife' misses 1 comedy. Surely the interest is as great
 in the complications and final change in | Irene's character as in the complications | of the story; and that is due to the skill | of the characterization. the humanity of
 the tale, the delicacy and sprightlinessi of the dialogue, far removed from tha
 tone of or-samming farce-in short. to | the style.
 1 Perhaps, as Mir. Walkley has some- where said, we are giving up our old distinctions of comedy. tragedy, farce and melodrama. Nowadays we simply 1 have plays. It Is only natural that the
 closer the stage comes to life, the better
 our technique is fitted to create the
 illusion of reality, the less likely we are
 to write stage works set in hard mould. 1 Life is not so set, not even the quietest
 and most uneventful. Still. the old dis l tinctions persist, and, like all tags, they are found useful-and like all tags. they arc abused Our instinct is to catalog l Her Husbands Wife as a farce. and yet when we think of Irene we distrust the term. Perhaps more noncommit- tai course is best. Gentle reader-a good playr'