Identifier: playersplaysofla02strauoft (find matches)
Title: Players and plays of the last quarter century; an historical summary of causes and a critical review of conditions as existing in the American theatre at the close of the nineteenth century
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Strang, Lewis Clinton, 1869-1935
Subjects: Theater -- History Theater -- United States Acting and actors
Publisher: Boston, L.C. Page
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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er which to moan. Nor is the play so com-monplace as these conditions might indicate.It is, in fact, plain, easy sailing from the rise ofthe curtain to the fall, and the whole dutyof the happy one out front in the audienceis accomplished in the pleasant task of thor-oughly enjoying himself. After inserting the qualifying clause thatlight comedy has its privileges, and that itsincongruities are to be accepted without unduequestioning, if only they bring with them justi-fying merriment, it may be declared that Mr.Cartons scheme of placing a society womanin the position of cook in the modest house-hold of a country clergyman, has, as a concep-tion, the distinct merit of suggestive comedycontrast — a contrast that is somewhat abovethe broadly farcical, in that it provides ampleopportunity for illustrating and developingcharacter through the mediumship of action.That Mr. Carton attained quite the maximumof effect which his original conception sug-gested, I am not so sure, but he attained
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HILDA SPONGAs Lady Huntworth in Lady Huntworths Experiment Six Representative Plays 105 enough to answer his immediate purposes.There was fascination in the way in whichhe played the fondness of the suave and wordyvicar for the cook, against the honest, blunt,undisguised, and thoroughly manly affectionof Captain Dorvaston for the same charmer;and there was delicate satire in placing bothof these swains in rivalry with the decidedlybusinesslike love of the portentous Gandy, abutler whose worldly ambition fixed its pin-nacle on a heatin-ouse that could be pur-chased on the instalment plan. The introduction of Lady Huntworths hus-band, with his delirium tremens, his spiders,and his thoroughly disgusting caddishness,was to me the one jarring element in theplay. The unwholesomeness of the characterseemed out of touch with the spirit of thework as a whole, and, moreover, its specificsetting forth on the stage served no very con-vincing purpose. The part gave nothing thatcould not have been

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