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Publication
4#, #7o 10.2.
“BETWEEN SUNSET
AND DAWN.“
POWERFUL ACTING AT THE
VAUDEVILLE,
Some particularly fine acting and some that
was particularly noisy markedthe performance
at the Vaudeville Theatre last night, when
Mesers. Norman Mekinnel and Frederick
Whelen presented a double bill that had the
supreme merit of being something off the
beaten track.
The very fine acting came in the first piece,
Between Sunset and Dawn,“ by Hermon
Quld—a play in four scenes of life in and
around a doss house“ in South London.
Low life on the stage seldom rings sincerely,
but in this case the crapulous atmosphere of
sordid misery came right across the footlights,
just as it was said once of Sir Arthur Pinero
that he brought the scent of new-mown hay
into the theatre. The story is really that of
The Fugitive“ translated into miserable
surroundings. Tothe“ doss house,“ which big
Jim Harris looks after at night for his simian
old möther comes Liz Higgins, seeking shelter.
She has run away from Bill’ Higgins, a
pal“ of Jim, because he knocks her about
and treats her generally in a brutal way.
Jim has never seen Liz Higgins before,
though he has heard about her as being
bit of class. He is a big, slow, lumbering
man who has never had anything to do with
women, but he takes an immediate fancy to
Liz. To him, in her shawl and battered hat,
velation of woman.
her face is the sudden r
in Turious seare
So that when Higgini
im abeut
of his wife big Jir
husband isiout
for a change. Ther
ey shall
of the way he prope
nt in
gether, and is alm
nts, bu
found passion. She c
of being arespectable woman“ i
upon her, and she steals back to Bill Hi
That individual, although he wants her bac
badly, is inflamed now py jealousy, and she
flies from him again and back to Jim.
SIGNIFICANT ACTING.
nificant
It is here thatwe have
of acting. They discuss their miserab
mi
tion, and we see that
jealous and distrustful
her husband at all.
before that Jim is a que
the stress of his first emo
his mind snap. He real
position of the woman, throw;

her drunken brute of a husband, and n
pected a little, against his will, by himself,
the man who wanted to protect her. One can
secthe craziness working in his face. The
is only one way out with a woman with her
back to the wall, and he suppliesit. He picks
up a knife from the table and stabs her as
she gives him his first caress from woman.
Mr. Norman MeKinnel was splendid as the
bemused Jim, and Miss May Blayney as Liz
Higgins gave a piece of restrained, perfect
character acting, with every little point made,
suich, as is rarely seen on the stage. In the
tinal scene the madness gradually ereeping
over Jim’s face andthe bewilderment and then
terror over hers wero very finely rendered.
Mrs. Ada King as a sort of female Caliban,
keeper ofthe“ doss-house,“ and Mr. Edmond
Breon as the cowardly and blustering Bill
Higgins, were bothexcellent. The piece itsel!
was very warmly received. It seenied a pity
that the author could find no way out except
the table knife, but that was how poor Jim
saw the situation. In a way, it is too much
tonsk us to believe that the sitnation would
hare terned Jim’s head. but Mr. MeKinnel