EMPIRE THEATRE

CHARLES FROHMAN, INC., AND DAVID BELASCO...MANAGERS

FIRE NOTICE

Look around NOW and choose the nearest Exit to your seat. In case of fire walk (not run) to THAT Exit. Do not try to beat your neighbor to the street.
THOMAS J. DRENNAN, Fire Commissioner.

Evenings at 8:15

Matinees Wednesday and Saturday at 2:15

CHARLES FROHMAN

Presents

Ruth Chatterton
(BY COURTESY OF HENRY MILLER)
—in—

MARY ROSE
A PLAY IN THREE ACTS
—by—

J. M. BARRIE

The Characters in the Order of their Appearance

<table><tr><td>✓Mrs. Otery</td><td>ADA KING</td></tr><tr><td>Harry</td><td>TOM NESBITT</td></tr><tr><td>✓Mr. Morland</td><td>O. B. CLARENCE</td></tr><tr><td>✓Mrs. Morland</td><td>WINIFRED FRASER</td></tr><tr><td>✓Rev. George Amy</td><td>A. S. HOMEWOOD</td></tr><tr><td>✓Mary Rose</td><td>RUTH CHATTERTON</td></tr><tr><td>✓Simon Blake</td><td>TOM NESBITT</td></tr><tr><td>✓Cameron</td><td>GUY BUCKLEY</td></tr></table>

The action of the Play, which covers a period of over thirty years, passes between a small manor house in Sussex and an island in the Outer Hebrides.

SYNOPSIS OF SCENES

ACT I.—THE HOME OF THE MORLANDS.

Scene 1—As it is today.

Scene 2—As it used to be.

ACT II.—THE ISLAND.

ACT III.—THE HOME OF THE MORLANDS.

Scene 1—As it used to be.

Scene 2—As it is today.

The Preludes, Interludes and Incidental Music Especially Composed by
NORMAN O'NEILL.

Produced under the Stage Direction of Iden Payne.
Stage Manager... George Hadden

Scenery by Homer Emens.

The Orchestra, under the direction of ELLIOTT SCHENCK, will play
the following selection of Music:

<table><tr><td>Overture—"Marriage of Figaro"<br/>After Act I.—</td><td>Mozart</td></tr><tr><td>(a) Marche Militaire</td><td>Schubert</td></tr><tr><td>(b) Hungarian Dance</td><td>Brahms</td></tr><tr><td>(c) Old English Dance</td><td>Purcell</td></tr><tr><td>After Act II.—</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>(a) "In the Village"</td><td>Godard</td></tr><tr><td>(b) Menuetto all'antico</td><td>Karganoff</td></tr><tr><td>(c) Serenade Espagnol</td><td>Bizet</td></tr></table>

(After Overture, House lights slowly out.
Start Prelude.)

## ACT I

The scene (which is to undergo an odd change early in the act) is at first an unfurnished room in a small manor house in England. The time is the present - a chilly November afternoon. It is an up-stairs room in an empty house which has been to sell for some time and is in a dreary dilapidated condition - damp and neglect everywhere doing their fell work. A melancholy dis-honored sort of room - all the more so because there is a suggestion of its having once been bright and com-fortable, the happy home of gentle-folks though not of great people. The owner indeed had been "the Squire" but a very small one. The room is gray blue colouring panelled, and shows the marks of inattention and some discoloration. It is a small room, not more than 17' deep and as low as the theatre line of right will allow. For reasons connected with the last act there must be a good deal of space between the back wall of the room and the back of the stage.

In speaking of R. and L. in this play we always mean stage R. and L.

On R. up stage is the entrance to the room, door C. The fireplace, at present unlit, is in middle of L. wall. There is a window of French kind down to floor in back wall with unseen steps from it to grounds. The window panes to look dirty so you can hardly see through them. And in this back wall is also a door opening on to a short passage with another door at end of it. The further door B, will be visible to only part of the audience and should be 6' up the passage. Door A is the important door in play. This diagram will show the idea and suggest the construction of house: -

2

The window, which is also important,
should be sufficiently small to seem
a real window and not the enormous
thing common on the stage. It has
no curtains nor blinds but some rough
sacking is nailed over it, covering
only part of it, so that some light
still struggles on. Thus the room
is not actually dark, but it is far
from light. The only furniture is
a worn old easy chair, large but in
a state of decay, and two rough
wooden packing cases. A dreary scene
that strikes a chill as the curtain
rises. At the end of the music
Prelude. LIGHT CUE 1.

The door R is opened by MRS. OTERY.
Mrs. Otery is a caretaker of some-
thing under forty, an indifferent
dull woman who has lost the sense
of enjoyment long ago. She seems
a natural part of this forlorn
abode. She has probably shown may
possible purchasers over the house,
just as she is doing now, who have
gone to return no more, and she has
the true caretaker's indifference as
to whether you mean to buy or not.
But at times, as we shall see, there
is something stranger about her - as
if she knew that the house had an
ill-name, and was anxious to conceal
it, and was herself a little frightened,
like one who had been sometimes scared
by the presence that haunts the house.
This gives her at times a furtive look.

Enter MRS. OTERY. She is very conscious
of door A. and shudders as she looks
at it. She looks in down the stairs
then goes slowly towards door A, as
she reaches it, she starts as if hear-
ing something and quickly moves straight
downstage, stops, then almost runs
to door C. (This should take about
4 seconds) and calls down:

Mrs. Otery

Are you coming up?

(HARRY enters and goes L.)

4

it wasn't a little box like this.

(moves down L.)

Mrs. Otery

This is the biggest room in the house.

Harry

Snakes, whether it's the room or not, it's clammy cold -
something shiversome about it.

(He shivers)

(for the first time she gives him a sharp glance)

Many a hut I've shivered in in the Bush in Australy,
nothing but white wood and a galvanized iron roof
and a bunk and a bucket and sheep's blood here and there,
and thought of the big room here and the warmth of it.
I'm the prodigal son, you see! And this is the best
his old home can do for him when the prodigal comes back,
expecting to find that calf done to a turn! We live and
learn, missis.

Mrs. Otery

We live at any rate.

Harry

Well said, my cabbage.

Mrs. Otery

Thank you, my rhododendron.

Harry

(Who should show a good deal of humour in the
first pages of this scene)

I like your spirit.

(He goes to her)

You and me would get on dandy if I had time to amuse
myself with your womanly weaknesses. I tell you what -
I can make sure whether this was the drawing-room. If
it was, there's an old apple-tree outside there, with
one of its branches scraping on the window. I ought to
know, for it was out at that window and down that apple-
tree to the ground that I slided one dark night when I
was a twelve year old, ran away from home, the naughty
blue-eyed angel that I was, and set off to make my fortune
on the blasted ocean. The fortune - my - my lady friend
is still dodging round the corner - but the apple tree
should be there to give me the glad eye.

(LIGHT CLUE 2. Moves up to L of window and pulls
down the sacking, which lets more light into the
room, but does not brighten it as the afternoon is
a dreary one. There is no tree, but we see a
small balustrade which is the beginning of the
steps down. She goes to L of window.)

(Referring to pulling down sacking.)

Avec apologies. But you see! No tree - no drawing room.

5

Mrs. Otery

I've heard tell there was once a tree there - and
you can see the root if you look down.

Harry

(Doing so, rubbing his sleeves on window)

Yes, I see it in the long grass - and a bit of the seat
that used to be round it. And there's the steps down
that we couldn't use because the tree grew so close.
It's the drawing-room right enough. Harry, my garcon -
my fairy name, madam, is Harry. There were blue curtains
to that window, and I used to hide behind them and pounce
out upon Robinson Crusoe.

(Crosses L.C.)

There was a sofa just here where I had my first lessons
in swimming. You're a fortunate woman, my petite, to
be here drinking in these moving memories. There used
to be a peacock, too. Now what the hell could a peacock
be doing in this room?

Mrs. Otery

(c)

I've been told there was an old firescreen with peacocks
worked on it. I daresay that's your peacock.

Harry

Shoot me dead -- even my peacock gone! And I could have
sworn I used to pull the feathers out of his tail !
The clock stood there,

(Points to C between and door A)

and it had a wheezy little figure of a smith that used
to strike the hour on an anvil. My old man used to wind
that clock up every night, every night, and I mind his
rage when he found out it was an eight day clock. The
padre had to reprove him for swearing. Padre? What's
the English for padre? Damme! I'm forgetting my own
language. Oh yes, parson. The two of them were always
quarreling about prints they collected. I can see them
sitting there

(points to R)

at a table quarreling and my old lady, bless her dear old
heart, in the sofa by the fire there

(points L)

knitting and smiling at their bickerings and getting them
to make it up. Is the parson in the land of the living
still? I can see high clear -- a long, thin man with a hard,
sharp face.

Mrs. Otery

The parson here is a very old man, but he is not tall
and thin, he's stoutish with white whiskers.

6

Harry

Whiskers? I can't think he had whiskers.
(Ruminates)

Had he whiskers? Stop a bit -- I believe it's his wife
I'm thinking about!

(Crosses R)

I doubt I don't give satisfaction as a sentimental
character. Is there any objection, your ladyship, to
smoking in the drawing-room?

Mrs. Otery

(Ungraciously)

Smoke if you want to.

Harry

What are you staring at that door for?
(She is up C.)

(He cuts cake of tobacco with a large clasp
knife, with right foot on a packing case.
She is staring at door A.)

Mrs. Otery

(Coming down C)

Nothing! That's a fearsome looking knife.

Harry

Useful in trench warfare, old toucher. It's not a
knife - it's a visiting card. Like this, with comps.

(He casts it at the large packing case,
and it sticks, quivering in the wood. He
leaves it there and lights his pipe.)

Mrs. Otery

Were you an officer?

Harry

Not me - don't insult me, woman. I began by being an
officer. See here -- after I'm gone, give me 24 hours
start, and then you can tell the neighborhood that you
had a visit from the man who won the war.

(Confidentially standing near her.)

(Note: neither of them sits in this scene
till Harry sits at end of it.)

Mrs. Otery

You're playing with me.

Harry

It's my manly weakness. You're so irresistible.