The New York herald., 1921-05-11
The Harlequinade'
Enchanting Play
in Neighborhood
Miss Joanna Roos Makes Ar
tistic Hit in Poetic Fantasy
by Barker and Calthrop.

All the appealing poetic beauty and
tragic pathos surrounding CoiumbIne or
her counterpart through the ages OF the
drama were made affectingly real last
night in the Neighborhood Playhouse
largely through the enchanting person
ality and natural talent of Miss Joanna
Roos who made her first professional
appearance in the first professional
presentation in this country OF THE
Harlequinade. by Granville Barker and
Dion Clayton Calthrop. The audience
sat fascinated through the highly imagi-
native bit of dramatic history OF Colnn,-
btne, Harlequin, PdntGloon and The
Clop7t.
The cast was one OF excellence. but
Miss Roos, who Is eighteen, was the
outstanding figure. She was a member
OF Miss Yvette Guilbert's dramatic class
and is product of the amateur oppor-
tunities furnished by the Neighborhood
Playhouse of which Miss Guilbert was
an honorary director during her recent
long stay here.
THE Harlequinade' Is described by
the authors as mot a play at all. but an
but an excursion of most unusual and
appealing sort. starting back In the
classic days OF ancient Greece. with
Charon. Momus. Mercury and Hipponax.
the philosopher, as the characters and
the nearer shore of the River Styx as
the setting. And thus II became known
that Harlequin is in reality Mercury,
Pantaloon Is Charon and Momus Is The
Clown
Those characters dear TO every dra-
matte age were brought down through
the intervening centuries into the magic
shown period OF the day after to-mor-
row and placed back again on the shore
of the Styx in personally conducted
tour through the cons into the future,
and the conductors were two strange
but fascinating characers: Uncle Ed
tDard (Whitford Kane) and Alice Whist
ter (Miss Roos).
The way they took the spectators in
to their confidence furnished half the
charm Of this whimsical conceit Uncle
Edtodrd ard Alice worked the cur
tains and told the musicians when
they could or could not play. Alice,
with ingenious charm, prepared the
audience for the strange things that II
was 10 behold in the life history of
Harlequin and his fellow players, and
told of how and where they found COL
un.bine, who in reality IS Psyche. Then
Uncle Edudrd would steal a smoke
from his pipe in his chair at the left OF
TIE stage. Alice always sat at the right,
except when she was talking to the audi
ence from the middle of the stage.
Harlequin and his followers from
Olympus were merely on a weekend
trip, countless centuries long but what
was time to the gods? Miss Lily Lubell
as Colatmbi,le John Roche as Pdntdloon,
Pacie Ripple as The Cfotcn and Albert
Carroll as Harlequin were at all times
perfectly within the poetic idea OF the
play. The others in the cast. including
Ian MacLaren. were equally excellent,
and the incidental dances by Miss Lubell
and Mr. Carroll were bits of fine color
touches to a charming picture.
The history of Harlequin was preceded
by bit of delightful comedy from the
pen of the late Harold Chaplin. who
lost his life In the war. 1t was called
innocent and Annabel," with Miss
Charlotte Granville, Miss Deirdre Doyle,
Miss Sybi Delman another of Miss Gull
berts students, and Harold West In the
cast. 1t made an excellent preface to a
poetic fantasy that is we'll worth a trip
to 466 Grand street to see and hear.