Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1921-12-03
miss COWL AND
PLAY SPLENDID
'SmiIin' Through Thoroughly
Delightful Presentation--A
Charrningly Sweet Play

"The best thing have ever seen
on the STAGE
This tribute to Jane Cowl and her
company's presentation of "Smilin'
Through" at the Rylander theater
last night summarized fairly well the
estimation of the audience at the fall
of the final curtain. Expecting much
from star Of whom most of them
had read great things but whom few
had seen, not one was disappointed.
TIE production was perfect in every
detail, the spirit OF the play delight
ful, and the acting splendid.
In this play Miss Cowl has part
unlike those which made her famous,
or rather, those which she has made
famous. She is a great emotional
actress and has tear-bringing rec
ord equalled by few. But in this she
has glad-play, the gladness ascen-
tuated by here and there suggestion
of a tear, and an opportunity on
one or two brief occasions for her
to show her emotional ability. Miss
Cowl measures up to the new part
charmingly. In "Smilin' Through"
she portrays the part Of an Irish or
phan lassie, just grown up. She ad-
heres to the Irish dialect throughout,
and gives the part vivacity that
carries it through buoyantly to the
end.
The plot Of the play is simple and
uninvolved. 1t revolves about the
love of betrothed couple and the
murder of the bride on her wedding
night by rejected suitor This hap
pened fifty years before the time of
the opening of the story. Miss Cowl
appeared as the niece of the slain
bride, living as the ward and COM
panion of the man who with the son
of the man who slew the bride, but
the bitterness for the father in the
heert of the now aged bridegroom
forbids their seeing each other. The
lad goes to war and comes home
wounded. He tries to make the girl
dislike him in order that she might
not insist on sacrificing her life on
helpless man. 1t all ends well with
happiness all around.
A novelty and rather bold con-
ception is the introduction of appari-
tions in the play. The production
opens with a prologue, dialogue be-
tween the dead mothers of the girl
and the boy in the story, looking
down from their, ETHEREAL abode and
regrettirg the hatred that was keep
ing them apart. One scene takes the
audience back fifty years and enacts
the killing, and later the slain bride
appears as an apparition in the moon
light to comfort the one she was
forced to leave. After years of these
frequent visits, when the hatred in
the heart grew against the son Of the
slayer, the apparition stopped coming.
At the end of the play, when love
had been restored and the young
couple were happy, the old man falls
asleep in the garden in the NOON
light, the apparition appears again,
trips in at the garden gate as of old
and greets him by the hand. AS he
asks her when he is to join her, she
points to the chair where he had
gore. to sleep, and there the audience
observes for the first time the figure
still reclining where they saw him
sit down, and realizes that he is dead
and his spirit has joined hers in the
soft moonlight.
"Who is afraid to die?" he asks
and the curtain slowly falls to the OBJ
servation that many would gladly
await the end did they but know the
| Joys that are to come after life.
The end flutters in quietly anc
softly, like the sncwflakes, with