Ainslee's Magazine, February 1913 — page 162: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

152 rare, distinguished, and separate as play writing, and as potent in the stimu- lation of the-.audience’s imagination. Without the subtle charms and graces, the inspirational touches, the vivid, mercurial intelligence of the “romantic actor’—so called because he can wear any century’s costume with the perfect manner of its day—the finest plays this season has to offer to the public could not have been staged. Such acting as we consider here has a very large influ- ence in the normal trend of our theater toward its own former high mark—to what it was in the days of Daly’s, Palm- er’s, The Frohman Empire Stock, the days of Modjeska and Booth and Bar- rett, McCullough, Mary Anderson, Ada Rehan, Joseph Jefferson, and, more lately, Mansfield; the Mansfield of his younger days, while the general theater still approximated to him, before-it had utterly receded and left him solitary as Liberty and the Lamp on his little art island. So let us to a review of the delicious acting in “She Stoops to Conquer.” Young Marlow is not a grateful part for an actor. He is every one’s: fool throughout the play, and, in his scenes with Kate, he is little else than a butt for her merciless mirth. Mr. Reicher’s chief achievement was in his make-up, both in physical portraiture and in what it suggested of type, station, and individual character. The nose ap- peared slender, sharply straight, and long, of the pronounced English type seen much among “gentlemen and scholars.” The nostrils were thinned and arched, to indicate that proud, aris- tocratic, oversensitive character of gen- try made known to us in old paintings of the “quality.” This touch at the nostrils was also the keynote of the role, as Mr. Reicher played it. Thus he tempered the egotism of J/arlow by translating it into sensitiveness. He gave him the rights of a human being, despite the mockery and mirth of the other characters, yet—and this is im- portant—never lost a comedy point. George Giddens, as Tony Lumpkin, justified his English fame in the role. His was a performance mellow and AINSLEE’S rich in unction, deep as the bubbling springs of pure comedy, and as human aS any man you ever jogged elbows with at the county fair. -He gave out, in sympathetic measure, the large, clumsy, Newfoundland-puppy _ frolic- someness and the obvious and ingenu- ous self-conceit of the young squire. And every point in character drawing and in reading was inspired by pure humor. The whole performance was genial, fun-loving, and grounded in a deep, tolerant- comprehension of the man the author drew. We had heard much of George Gid- dens and his Tony; his name is noted in the part in the “tight little island of Britain.” Those who had seen his Ad- miral, in ‘““Pomander Walk,” were ex- pecting much, whether they had heard of his Tony or not. No one was dis- appointed, for Mr. Giddens lived up to all the announcements made in _ his name, not only as Tony, but in the role of Dogberry, in “Much Ado About Nothing.” Of Fred Permain, we had not heard much. In these days of excessive ad- vertising, we are not prepared for such artistry in any player unless he is fea- tured and trumpeted in advance; though it is very few of those who are so heralded who justify it histrioni- cally! Mr. Permain’s Hardcastle was one of the richest treats in this excel- lent cast. Besides an impeccable tech- nique, he has native-talent of a high order, and the power of conviction in an unusual degree. His Hardcastle was a perfectly delineated character, simple and benign, without loss of largeness; dignified on occasion, with all the man’s majesty of an English autocrat of the home, of Hardcastle’s class and period, and, withal, possessing the needed touch of the country gentleman, the squire, as opposed to the gentleman of the town. It was as fine and complete a piece of portraiture as ever was exe- cuted with brush and canvas to add to the fame of a Romney or a Reynolds. Mr. Permain’s splendid picture of Hardcastle did not record him a one- part actor, however. He appeared in “Much Ado About Nothing” as Leo- AMC NOOK (C@