The Theatre: New Plays: Dec. 17, 1923

Pelleas and Melisande. There are few more distressing duties than to seize by the beard a venerable bit of literature that has acquired the privileged sanctity of a classic. You tug the white whiskers from their moorings— and there stands revealed a fictional figure worn with age but no longer dignified. Such was the lot of Pelleas and Melisande, a fantasy of Maeterlinck’s which continued absence from the stage has afforded it an illegitimate repute.

Jane Cowl, fresh from her memorable success as Juliet, essayed the part of Melisande. She worked into it much of her own magic of voice and peculiar beauty. Yet there was little in the play which she could seize upon and call her own. She was a living figure lost in the brambles of a formless forest.

Rollo Peters looked particularly well in exotic costumes of his own designing. Of this he was fully conscious. Otherwise his performance was steadily satisfactory.

Mainly notable was the production design, also the work of Peters. He clothed the 18 scenes in a wardrobe distinctively bizarre, which he accomplished with a judicious economy superior only to his unfailing taste. Taking it all in all, Maeterlinck was primarily at fault. The fragile beauty of his strange imagining could not withstand the windy weather of actual production on the stage.

John Corbin: “Absence of the fresh vitality and clear human will which inspires the truly naive.”

F. P. A.: “Surcharged with platitudinous symbolism and spurious poetry.”

The Lady is a flagrant example of the old-fashioned melodrama which regards the audience as a sponge. Taking this sponge in its powerful, primitive fingers, the play squeezes. Tears drip like rain drops after thunder. But despite the fact that The Lady is shamelessly sensational, acutely obvious, completely out-of-date, its capacity for engrossing entertainment has scarcely been equaled on the stage of the season.

Polly Pearl (Mary Nash), tangles herself in trouble at the outset by marrying the idle offspring of the recent rich. Her claim to cosmic recognition at the time was moderate success as a soubrette in a second class London music hall. She is careless of Cockney accent but scrupulous of moral tone. Amid the exotic realities of Monte Carlo, her male acquisition develops desperate ennui and she departs in dis-consolate defiance.

Her child is born in a gaudy Marseilles brothel. Joint maintenance of her honor and her offspring under such circumstances is magically accomplished in the best manner of melodrama. Matters seem to be mending until a vicious paternal grandfather appears and essays to take the child from her by law, alleging that she is not fit to rear her own. By a fortunate coincidence she is enabled to whisk the lad away to a friendly haven in England but only with the understanding that she never see him again.

Twenty years later he turns up under the most unfavorable circumstances in the buvette which she owns at Le Havre. In the crisis (a man has been murdered), he proves himself a gentleman and departs to America to forge a fortune. Thus is her life of sorrow justified.

Miss Nash displays a most astonishing versatility which extends from the difficult rapids of soubrette song-and-dance to the placid waters of benign old age. When her emotional explosion occurred, coincident with the loss of her child, an elderly matron sitting next your correspondent half rose in her seat and audibly protested its injustice. More conclusive witness of the power of a performance is seldom seen in the Theatre.

By no means the least fascinating feature of the production is the scrupulous reincarnation of styles and songs of 30 years ago.

Alexander Woollcott; “Considerably surprised, not a little touched and immensely entertained.”

Percy Hammond: “Well-behaved rip-snorter.”

Laurence Stalling—: “Undeniably entertaining … a genuine souvenir of the Theatre.”

The Potters. Though the word “boob” is rather an outworn colloquialism, it must be revived to designate the type lampooned by Playwright J. P. McEvoy. He has written a satire live with savage bristles, has hurled it full in the face of the great American boob.

The G. A. B. he designates as the middle class businessman-husband; the man whose unimportance at the office is in inverse ratio to his assumption of authority at home; the stupid oaf who reads the newspaper aloud to his family ; the man whose conversation is largely confined to “I’ll say so.”

Such is Pa Potter. The author has woven around him a comedy unusual in its wit and penetration.

He was amazingly fortunate in securing Donald Meek as the medium of his mordant observations. Mr. Meek looks the part; he expands its considerable qualities to the precise dimensions of brilliance by the extraordinary shrewdness of his playing.

The plot is negligible. It is concerned with wild cat oil stock in which Pa Potter is flattered into sinking all his meagre savings. His daughter meanwhile becomes engaged to an ex-life-guard of pleasing personality but no prospects. Toward extinguishing this match and regaining his money are Pa Potter’s efforts directed.

The progress of these efforts is depicted in a dozen scenes. The opening scene at family breakfast, the blazing satire of the scene in the crowded trolley car, the quick lunch episode are probably the best.

A large cast is required to interpret the changing phases of the action. With the exception of Mary Carroll as Daughter Potter, its selection seemed shrewdly accurate. Notable portraits are contributed by Catharine Calhoun Doucet and Josephine Deffry.

By no means the least favorable feature is the precise celerity with which the twelve scenes follow one another.

John Corbin: “Just a folk play, a cartoon embodiment of the simplicity and the shrewdness, the family jars and the family affections, the commonplace intelligence and the wholesome character of the American people.”

New York Tribune: “The characters are drawn with a somewhat stark irony, precipitating as much pathos as humor.”