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cleverer
than Arthur
Schnitzlers Anatol diales has ever
been written. Of course, they are
not to be taken seriously. It is diffi¬
cult to understand how anybody can
But it has been done. To be sure, it
requires » Doberry type of mind.
or sy humor, deft irony, and so¬
phisticated insight, these dialogues are
quite without quel. It is not merely
the grave, almost pathetic egotiam
of Anato himself, with his many loves.
is in the diabolically keen way the
characters of the girls have been drawn.
Or, to be accurate, they have been su¬
gested rather than drawn.
Five of the episodes were chosen by
Winthrop Ames to open the little The¬
are with last night. The first was
Ask No Questions and You'll hear
No Stories. Anatol is plagning his
brain by wondering whether Hilda is
to him. Why not hypnotize der
says Max, and find out the truth. No
sooner said than done. But at that
tardar. And that be,
tos. Let Max have the room, then
Anatol will as the important question.
Max goes and Anato wakes Hilda
without dar¬
ask her.
Then there
Episode
is looking over some of trophes. He
find that reminds him of Bibi.
Poon child. What was to
me? An episode But the never for¬
get. Some women can, but not she."
Bibi comes in to visit Max, des An¬
toi, and cannot for the life of her
recollect who he is.
Then again a Farewell Supper."
Anato preparing to break the ad
news to Mimi that the fair is finished.
Mimi enters and gets to the point be¬
fore Anatole much to our philander's
disgust. Se, too, has found another
lover. Anatol becomes more and more
pique, and was unleasant ouve
been boring me till I could only stay in
the room with you by sitting and think¬
ing of her. I've had to shut my eyes
tight and think it was her wat kiss¬
Dito to that, my dear," is Mimis
complacent answer.
But that is not all says Anatol.
Under the guise of a confession he
boasts that he was untrue to Mimi
weeks and weeks ago. Then Mimi is
outrage: "You cad, she says, after
all never told you that and I never
would have told it you. Only a man
could be so pleasant." And she de¬
parts, grabbing a handful of cigars for
her new lover.
But it is not faible to describe all
the dialogues at length. Besides they
are so much more delightful than any
description could possibly be. The
it, the adroit digs at the human
egotism that lies in all of us, the com¬
dy of whole affai¬
perfectly ir¬
resistible. Perhaps
The wedding
Morning is the best one of all.
is at once funnier and more pathetic
than the others although there is a
good deal of pathos in the sady re¬
woman who might have
den happy if she hadn't been quite
uch a coward.
en dialogues are
mounted at the Little Theatre. The
there, which is the main
John Barrymore on the whole is
risingly good as Anatol, although
he part really needs an actor naturally
rave, more experienced, and more ma¬
ture. Mr. Barry more acted in the cor¬
rect ein of seriousness, however, and
never yielded to a temptation to bur¬
lesque. Oswald Yorke was an excellent
for to him. Doris Kenne was ama¬
only good simi. The vulgarity; the
sheer feine, but unmalignant immoral¬
ity of the part she conveyed to per¬
fection. Marguerite Clark gave a very
clever little sketch as Hilda, though she
had least of all to do. Isabelle Lee made
a capital shrew of Lena. The stage
settings were in perfect taste.
Anatol and his affairs will be an un¬
mitagated delight to anybody with
humor and a taste for sophisticated
levity. The Granville Barker para
phrase preserves to a really wonderful
extent the spirit of the original.
LOUIS SHERTIN.
OCTOBER 15. 1912
News of the Theatres
Winthrop Ames ro-opened his little
Theatre last night for a second season
with a light play. It is part of Mr. Ame¬
policy to sit into aesthetic channels for
the best of comedy. The net result of his
latest offering. The Affairs of Anatol
supposed to be one of Arthur Schnitzlers
best travesties, proved little more than a
display of feminine coquetry, from the
standpoint of the author, but it brought
forth John Barrymore in the best work
he has ever done. The play also awakened
the audience to the fact that Doris Kenne
can be an engaging comédienne and that
Katharine Emmet can command attention
in a human interest role in a comedy at¬
mosphere.
Anatol" is a witty, satirical work in five
episodes; each complete treating of the
man or woman in love from a different
viewpoint. To make the plot in sequence
is the reappearing figure of the lover.
He is a half-poet, halt man of the world,
who must be in love or lean to wariness.
His taste is so catholle that it embraces
the social scale. See him at the crucial
moments of five love affairs, and you have
John Barrymore, as Anatol at his best.
The varied love which he encourages
gives the author an opening for det con¬
trast between man and woman and Gran¬
ville Barker has lost nothing of the deli¬
cate situations in his translation. No bet¬
ter effervescent, nor appant character
could escape John Barrymore, and when
Marguerite Clarke, Doris Kenne, Kath¬
arine Emmet, Isabelle Lee and Gall Kane
are brought for as the five persons
in the love troubles of Anatol, the con¬
trast of feminine character needs no words
to tell of exquisite comedy work.
Anatole will blend well with the more
serious affairs of the winter season.
London, Oct. 14.— Barre first
and Pinero also ran may be said of
the eagerly awaited triple bill which
Charles Frohman presented tonight at
the Duke of Yorks Theatre Shaw's piece
was unworthy of him. Two men are
travelling around the world inopposite
directions from their wives. Each meets
the other's wife, each falls in love with
the other's wife and the quartette meet
at a sea-port hotel at the end of the
journey. First one couple, then the other,
then the quartette talk lengthily and te¬
diously and the chief point around, which
the talk centers is merely unpleasantly
suggestive of the "sin" they might have
committed.
Pineros ghost story tells of a young
widow who kept a untry in. A London
man going there by chance falls in love
but is held back by overing her talk
with a visitor. The chief part of this play
is the scene showing the widow taking
with the very flesh and blood ghost of
her late husband, who advises her how to
run her business and finally surrender
her to the London visitor. Margery
Maude, Cyrill Maude's daughter, acted
wel las the widow.
Barries Rosalind" is full of the Barre
charm and Irene Vanbruch gave a fine
performance. In the play she is found in
a country lodging, luxuriating in the free¬
dom of midde-age A photograph of her
daughter, Beatrice is on the mentelpiece
the daughter being a young star actress.
The daughters over, a young fellow of
23, appears on the scene and for a time
treats Miss Vanbruch as his idolis mother
until she tells him that she is "Beatrice
taking a holiday.
The piece finishes with her receiving a
telegram ordering a return to London to
rehearse immediately. She leaves for the
stage as a women of "forty and a bittock
and reappears, dressed in London finery,
and looking the fascinating young women
of 29 which she declares is the greatest
age for women, who are on the stage
until 60. I write my epitaph," she says
She had a good long 20."