The Washington times., 1922-04-04

lOH OF inc IuitTy play 10
~ Q rather windy affair of
long.range conversation. it must
in fairness be conceded there is a
polished ease to it's verbiage that
is not hard to listen to. Mr.. Be-
e lasco, having chosen in this spe-
cific instance to tinker with an
orgy of talk, it seems to, us we
ought to appraise him. not because
he may have erred in choice. but
from the viewpoint Of what ne has
done with the handicap. We think he
has triumphed in a degree, though
he must have been conscious
throughout the. staging of the
piece Of wailing at the moon.
1.-The Grand Duke" sketches al.
most completely one well-round-
ed character and that Is the duke
himself. The plot is thin, the sit
uations are null and void and the
remaining characters are Incl
dent foils to the one aim Of per-
hitting Mr.. Atwill to give us a
cameo of delineation that we
thought splendid.
We can be cordially Indifferent
to the story as merely brush and
pigment essential to an end, but
subdued by Atwill's handling OF
these tools. The duke is bigger
than his play and while we have
met fewer dukes than other per-
sonages In a career of scrivening,
that does not Illustrate the opin-
ion that II Atwill does not play
q grand duke to perfection he does
play some intensely individual be-
ing to an accomplished extent.
The breakfast scene, for in
stance, in the dukes lodgings
remember he's in Paris, an inn
poverished refugee from Boil
shevistic wrath. The duke. me-
ticulous to the last tine Of his
fork, did ten minutes OF contem-
plative eating that brought re-
pressed chuckling from all the
Cafeterian gourmets in the house.
This scene is one of the bright bits
Of the play.
The renewed advances Of Mile.
Martinez to recapture the affec-
tons of the duke, allow him a
suave impersonation Of how effec-
tive a weapon sophistication is to
repulse unwelcome things. That's
about all there is to the tale ex-
cept it's ranhifications splendidly
adduced by Lima Abarbanell,
Vivian Tobin. Morgan Farley and
John Shine, the latter an amiable
counterpart Of John Bunny. The
duke refuses his name to his i'll
gotten son. Ignorant Of his origin
the young man makes a name for
himself and is elected to the
Academic, thereby emancipating
all the evils Of the past.
Not that it is pertinent but as
explaining this new heritage OF
Atwill's, 1t might be mentioned
that this bit of rigid farce is said
not to be the same vehicle which
sacha Guitry wrote and acted in
TO Partisan acclaim.
After the opening of tho piece
In New York. Mr.. Belasco was
quoted as saying the translation
was so literal that It could be
turned back into French again
with scarcely a word changed. A
New York critic alleged the trans
lation was bungled, whereupon
Capt. Achmed Abdullah, the
adapter. wrote him gently thus:
when you say translated 1t.
then. Of course, unless you are I'M
familiar with the original by Gui-
try. you arc a damned liar, as
changed the entire play from first
20 last, wrote an entirely new Sec
ond act. only keeping one of Gull
try's scenes, and an entirely new
end to the third act"
Thus, a. they say in Battle
Creek, there's q reason II Mr.. At
will reaches lesser heights than his
colleague and original author of
the piece.