New-York tribune., 1920-01-06
By Haywood Broun

"The Purple Mask" is romantic
melodrama Of frills and thrills. Math-
eson Lang's play of the period of
Bonaparte proves that royalists, for all
their airs and graces, may provide as
exciting an evening in the theater as
cracksmen or detectives. In fact, "The
Purple Mask" seems to us at least two
o, or three times as stirring as any of
the crook plays or murder mysteries
which have passed this way in several
seasons.
we teel little uncertain about stat
ing things in terms of twice or thrice
because the secret formula by which
one royalist identified another con-
sisted of the question "Have you any
white flags?" and the somewhat ir-
relevant answer "Three times six is
seventeen" That sounded incorrect
to us, and at the end of the second act
we asked the man in the box office,
and he agreed that mistake had
been made. We wondered why the
playwright had made his royalists
blunder in this way. and then suddenly
the symbolic meaning Of it all came
to us. Yes, for those who are far
seeing enough to search for a mean
ing, even in melodrama, "Three times
six is seventeen" should be very H.
Illuminating. After all, why is it that
royalists throughout the world are
dying out? Simply and solely because
they can't multiply.
However, they fought winning fight
last night in spite Of the genius of
Brisquet, special agent of the project
Of police. This Bonapartist agent mad
his temporary triumphs, to be sure,
but in the long run he was no match
for the Chevalier Of the Purple FLASK
AS Brisquet, Brandon lyman gave an
extraordinary performance. He man
aged to deceive first night audience
in performing a trick which would
seem to be all but impossible. Natur-
ally, we may not reveal the nature
of this strategem but it was carried
out so skilfully that everybody was
fooled much to his or her delight.
Leo Ditrichstein's role is easy for
him. 1t requires no more than a
touch of his we'll known authority and
distinction, but though it is easy no
one should lose sight Of the fact that
it is also expert. Mr.. Ditrichstein's
nonchalance and grace were highly di-
verting and helped to make the various
surprises come all the more unexpect-
edly.
The play is as full of sudden twists
and turns as a subway express during
a rush hour. 1t suffers a little from
the fact that the surprises Of the sec
ond and third acts are rather more in
genious than those of the fourth and
fifth, but there is enough excitement to
carry through the evening.
In addition to the performances of
Mr.. Ditrichstein and Mr.. lyman there
was good work by Lilly Cahll and
Stephen Wright. The play deserves the
attention Of all those who like stirring
melodrama with a dash Of merriment
thrown in for good measure.
At the Palace
The bill at the Palace this week
abounds in excellent clowning First
Of all there is the headliner,
Crock, with his delicate and
seemingly casual grotesquerics Then
there is Leon Errol, whose appeal to
the humorous scnsibilities is little
broader and more prcmeditated, but
full and decidedly divertng, and lastly,
the humor of sheer speed, as exempli-
fled by George Rockwell and AL Fox.
A comedian in vaudeville need not have
any better jokes than "call out the pre-
serves" and center the holy bonds of
macaroni," if only he can keep the
tempo high enough. We should be
ashamed to recognize almost any one
Of the quips employed by this pair if
we met it in broad daylight, but while
the infectious influence of the rapid
patter gripped US we thought we had
seldom if ever heard more diverting
witticisms.
Cleveland Bronncr's symbolic spec
tacle called zone Day" is pretty ter
rib)e. 1t contains less Maeterlinck
than usual and more cheeaecloth.