THE LORGNETTE

Observer, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10, 15 November 1913, Page 6

THE LORGNETTE

[By Prompter.]

CLEMENT MAY, elocutionist and charac cer delineator, by exceedingly good woi-k at tne Opera nouse nas attracted many new patrons. His Dickensian sketches nave created unusual interest, as ivxr May really vivifies the people we know in the books of the Great Master. 0. Henry is the bed-rock delineator of all types of humanity and their emotions. May's telling of 0. Henry's stories is so natural, so full of quiet convincing expresssion that students of this brilliant American's wealth of searching stories are delighted, and those who do not know 0. Henry will now read him. The Vienna Trio have reappeared greatly to the delight of patrons. They are violinists of marked merit, and the applause that greets them is warm and genuine. Troutt and his mermaid are still disporting in their crystal aquarium, doing those things which loss aquatic people do in the dining room and other haunts of terra firma. American patter artists flow on like the .Mississippi—a steady stream of vivacious comedy and comment highly ■diverting to those who know the language. The Carlo Mai acrobats do their india-rubber stunts without accident, and with great acceptance. Miss Eileen Capel is dancing very nicely and is dainty to look on, and Miss Gabrielle Hope is much at home in her instrumental .selections, which are excellent. Considering the extremely unsettled nature of the community, attendances have kept up wonderfully.

"The Black Circle," the top-line picture thriller at the Globe Theatre, explains that crime is a large sized specialty nowadays and shows the doings of a "swell-mob," who patronise high society and steal st,ciety's property. The heart interest centres in the cutting adrift of one of the thieves who selects America as the crimeless country where he can live a clean life. He is followed and blackmailed, but the villain is foiled (ha ! ha!) and all is well. A scenic series of picturesque Bucharest is educational, and is very convincing, except that there is no smell. "Prisoner of the Golden Isles" is a dramatic story of capture, suffering and release, the story being told in a very pointed and satisfying way. Great interest is shown in the local records, which include glimpses of special police on duty and curious crowds. The races at Ellerslie are shown, and the public gets a look in at the special troops in camp without the fag of walking to the Domain. The Defence Cadets' parade is also a stirring subject, in which unusual interest is shown.

At the Lyric, " With Captain Scott to the South Pole" holds the chief interest, telling as it does m superb pictures the story of the heroes who perished doing their selfimposed task. The series is remarkable for the perfection of the photography and the idea one is able to obtain of the work and suffering of the devoted band of heroes. An industrial film shows the making of incandescent gas mantles and is educationally of deep interest. Solitaires " is a Vita comedy, with some very good colours of fun woven in. " On the Broad Stairway " is a convincing drama, in which human passions, emotions and instincts find full play and a stirring story is worked out with the correctness of detail that the public now demands. A very fine study of "Mischievous Monkeys" shows a number of our simian relatives engaged in prankish

play and suggest much similarity between naughty little boys and girls. The Gaumont Graphic gives a quick review of the events that were stirring the old world when the mail left, and the Lyric orchestra plays music always appropriate to the particular story that is doing duty at the moment.

Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" would have been glad to have done it for the pictures—about half an hour of hard acting v. twenty-four years of lonely battling for a crust. The friend of our youth is doing it all over again at the King's Theatre, even to finding the famous footprints on the sand. Half a century ago when I first read the footprint story, I concluded that the savage must have hopped out of his boat on one foot and hopped back again. He only left one print. Man Friday went big in the picture. Altogether, Mr Crusoe is excellent even to the goatskin umbrella. A film depicting the making of panama hats is interesting to the knuts that wear them, or anybody who has ever saved

up enough money to buy one. "Checkmated " describes the methods used by a couple of Yankee "boobhunters," who, however, are up against superior intellects and lower their flag to the gun of justice just when the harvest seems to go 25 bushels to the acre. " The Lady in Black" gives the emotions a stir or two, and the Pathe Gazette is full of picture news culled from world centres and bringing the isolated colonial on to the doorstep of events. The Fuller orchestra supplies the requisite necessary music in its excellent and refined manner, taking care to change its programme frequently so that they like the pictures shall be up-to-date.

Change day at the Queen's Theatre gives the story of "The Mystery of West Sedgwick," a chance to be told per picture. Joseph Crawford unfortunately "loses the number of his mess,' } and quite a lot of people are deemed to be guilty until they are proved to be innocent of causing his lamented demise. The sleuth hounds extend their united intellects almost to breaking point and when

everybody thinks that at least half a dozen people committed the murder at various times, the mystery is elucidated and a little ray of hpiness gets a chance to show through the dark curtain of cruel deeds, r

doubt crime pictures are immensely popular. In great contrast is the drama, "The Son of the House," a moving story that tells the eteranl tale of a woman's devotion on behalf of a rotter. It is superbly acted and worked out with a clever eye to the natural possibilities, although picture play actors are getting into the bad habit of using the same mechanical gesture to express an emotion (the French are the most flagrant in this respect). A minority of them remain natural enough. In this particular film the people are more than ordinarily natural. I daresay it is hard to forget that a machine is winking at one. A scenic film of great excellence is "The Lakes of Boulonge," where is shown the most attractive picture spots of these famous pieces of water. There is also a wealth of other excellent pictures.

"The Fugitive," Mr John Galsworthy's new four-act play, which was successfully produced at the Court Theatre, London, on September 16, is an interesting and sincere, if not intensely dramatic, piece of work. Written in the approved modern style, which gives the audience a series of small shocks without producing any very definite sensation, it treats .of that familiar and rather trying person, the woman who is misunderstood. Clare Desmond, the woman in question, does not hit it off with her husband, and leaves him, intending to support herself. She proves helpless to do so, however, becomes involved with a literary "gent." named Malise (and eventually commits suicide by taking poison in a smart restaurant where some noisy bloods are holding a hunt dinner. "The Fugitive" is full of well-observed touches of character, with flashes of a somewhat professional humour ; but, in spite of its undoubted cleverness, it is unlikely to find a permanent place in the theatre. It was adequately, though not brilliantly, acted.

" Years of Discretion," the American play now at the London Globe, afforded Miss Ethel Irving an opportunity to play a role which in certain respects appears to resemble Lady Frederick. The character was a widow who resolved to become young again, and, being so, captivated a score of people. She was 48, and she set herself to flirt wildly with three middle-aged men—one a millionaire man-about-town, another an Irishman, who was supposed to be an expert in mixing cocktails, and another a burlesque anarchist lecturer who climbed up the fire-escape and peeped through the boudoir curtains.