New-York tribune., 1922-01-11
frOVincetOWnerS
Put on 3 One-Act
Extraordinaries
'sThe Stick-Up; a Rough
neck Fantasy Is the Most
Bizarre Bit of Macd0u.
gal Streets New Crop

In their current bill of three one
act plays the provincetown Players, at
their Macdougnll Street playhouse,
maintain their attitude of dissent from
the commercial thcatcr.
Their offering includes "a Little Act
of Justice by Norman c. Lindau;
"Footstcps," by Donald Corley. and
The Stick-up; A Roughneck Fantasy"
by Pierre Loving The last Of which is
presented in a novel and original man
ner. 1t is a complete rebuff to the
ccm.c muse.
The Lindau paylet is sombcr piece
in which the cardinal virtue of justice
flies into a pet and plays smash with
the other members of the quadrilateral
Prudence. Temperance and Fortitudc
A little virtue, like little knowledge,
may be a dangerous thing. And so the
patient enduring by Mark Tilburn of
the wrong to his daughter and the full
human amends undertaken by Joe
Rankin on behalf Of his son, are
twarted by the untimely taking off
Of the young trangressor at the hands
OF an bound relative of the girl
It is q tightly written play, skillfully
directed by Margaret Wychery and
we'll played by Harold McGoe and
Henry O'Neil, as parents, Charles
\uhn as the misguided avenger and
Blanche Hays as the gad-fy who in
stigates the tragedy.
Footsteps" appears to be a good
enough play, but inetFectual, because
OF the lack Of emphasis and diferen-
tiation in the management of stage
business. Jeeny Cawdry is an impe
rtous woman, who has waited thirty
i
slight by her lover. The house sits
abruptly on the sidewalk and the foot
steps Of passersby echo as from a
sounding board. Listening to the foot
steps she has learned to know every
early or late walker in the village. BY
this echoing calendar she counts the
returns of the lover who often hcsi-
tates, but never enters. Eventually she
felgns mortal illness to break his
pride and bend his steps into the
house. And as she listens the pilgrim
Death stalks by. Twice the wierd seiz-
ure takes er and just in the fruition
of her plot the footsteps of the un-
known halt and Jeeny Cawdry and her
pride are laid low. Eleanor Hutch
on plays the stilf-necked heroine
well, but it seemed that the stagecraft
Of George Cram Cook deserted him in
the management of the footsteps,
/ whlch should have induced something
approximatine the mood of doom, in
! order to arify the climax.
The Stick-up' is an oddity. The
program times it in eternity and places
1t inside the orbit Of Uranus. At the
curtain three hod-up men come to
themselves somewhere beyond the ken
Of earth. Their spirits are Ingenious
! ly represented by means of shadow
Graphs. One Of them is Cowcatcher.
The shade beyond holds no horror for
him. HIS head is bloody but unbowed
lie has a pride that LAUGHS at Luci-
fer's In his heart a million head of
mavericks are grazing and the million
are feeding as one. He draws his gun
on the shooting stars; he stages a
stck-up of an onrushing comet and
thcn there is a crash that brings the
three back 20 earth that bred them.
But Cowcatcher ad taste of the
nightnings and like Ajax he purposes
to spend at least some of his time defy
ing them. "lw sick of little jobs he
shouts at the earth where inherit the
meek. "Henceforth ! will stick-up
worlds" It's a quaint and original
thing, Eugene Lincoln playing the high.
plumed Cowcatchcr b. f.