"THE CHORUS GIRL."

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 133, 12 June 1909, Page 10

"THE CHORUS GIRL."

Miss Rose Stahl is an astonishing delight — a really brilliant example of those dry-humored, pawky comedians that America produces, who can one moment roll out ba]fling American epigrams with metaphors alternating from the game of poker to the betting ring, and the next turn on the tap of pathos with unruffled competence and unfailing effect. She is a strange-looking figure^ — her face a sort of American version of Bernhardt, her walk something between the Gibson girl and George Robey — yet with all her extravagances she is a genuine fine actress, straight, sincere, full of temperament, and can make people cry or laugh at will. Above all, she speaks that chiefly wonderful and still developing product, the American language, with a ring t,hat we can hardly remember to have heard equalled. She is supposed to be an Irish girl, and she does now and then allow the brogue to do battle with her drawl. But the language is the thing. "I guess I used to be the big screech in this household," says she as she comes on — the flamboyant chorus-girl, fresh from New York, come to pulverise her pa and ma in the old village. " 'The Moonlight Maid's' gone into cold storage. The financial party got chilblains." That is the reason of her holiday. "After fifteen weeks of imitation towns this is a peach-preserve," says she, air she embraces her sweetheart, who appears to be a "hunch," whatever that is. But still, she loves him. "I'm an awful chump to put you wise to the fact," she admits, "but you're the only man that wants me, and you just can't lose me." After being dazzled by floods of this kind of eloquence, spoken by Miss Stahl with irresistible aplomb, it begins | to dawn down upon one that "The Chorus Lady" is in itself just a workmanlike melodrama, swaying, as nearly all these American plays do, between dry humour and conventional unambitious pathos. There is no attempt at originality. The "chorus-lady," herself an old hand, takes her young sister up to New York, catches her at a swell villain's rooms, and heroically takes her place when the mother and her own sweetheart come in Bearch.' That is all. It has happened, of course, a thousand times on the stage of every country. To be sure, it is done in the vaudeville play with a businesslike, strong, quiet, frank earnestness that has a very true_ appeal. The character-drawing is precise and good — as, for instance, the old Irish mother, and the chorus girls in a dressing-room scene, which supplies no end of typical American wit. The acting of Miss Bose Stahl is really admirable and brilliant. She is an actress of genuine power, and alike in comedy and tragedy, always interesting and attractive.