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Show A BOOK WITH AN OGDEN CHARACTER. Tiif American public while never becoming effusive In either praise nr support of the American actor, has ,ncr been liberal In criticism; in fact far more liberal than just. Our "Th criticism of the actor, the opera and , , the stage has become about as vort,h- j less as can be conceived of. Often Uie snow manager port of his own play Only of late has the American public been able to know what was editorial statement J or reporter's review of" the play and day what was paid matter. AH of thlfl chfl has had a very direct bearing upon mo1 our stage Itfe and ethics. The box bffylce has been the one mark of suc- ' 'T (.eps Good plays have failed and sea bad plays and worse actors have been prP advertised to success. The theatre-goinvpubjic is naturally (1ifl interested in how a modern company H is conducted and how stars and un- tna darlings are managed. Nat (ioodwm yfa has tried to tell all of this, and very ma much more, in a book that is neither I biography, fiction nor history H to jS just what you would expect from r4 Matsomething of this and more of j0 that, with a bit or the other. Some S of us have seen Mr. Goodwin in most i e Ri 0f his productions and we never s01 expected Nat to write a connected ru i me book, and lie has not in the least disappointed dis-appointed us He has gathered, how- gi over, some lour hundred pages of 11 choice recollections, bitter experien- i ! ceB, varied successes and failures jn Most interesting are his memoirs of en thr. great actors and actresses of the M) past forty years. 1,1 Mr. Goodwin was a remarkable man Be an artor, In this: He has for so many years played so vary many different dif-ferent pari and tntrodoced so many new plays. Tou readily realize, thte when you read hla boolc Have you ever heard Nat jrlve a 'curtain speech? We have heard Irving. Mansfield Wtllard, Jefferson, Booth, and Goodwin; that Is we remember thone of those we have listened to. and forgotten quite aa many more Never will wo forget Goodwin and Elliott El-liott In their New York success of "Nathan Hale." Nat's speech waa better than the show, and that Is saying say-ing very much, Indeed Well, there are whole chapters in Nat Goodwin s book just as disconnected. Irrelevant and interesting as his curtain calls. The biographical features of the hook are the worst parts of it. He does not seem to sense the American Idea of honor in regard to women. It is very hard to convince us that the women were always to blame. It would have given the reading public a better impression If he had never mentioned his wives at all No man either adds to his respect nor honor by blaming a woman for his sins of omission. omis-sion. We naturally expect a personal bias in his criticism of other players, but his terse chapters upon the leaders of the stage are fascinating, if not sound, providing you hae seen the actor tin the whole it Is a book with which to while away many hours, it has this over-redeeming feature, It is never dull Your Interest never wanes and that is high praise for any book. Western people will find many points of interest in the 'book. It recounts the rise and fall of one of the Nevada mining schemes. The people of the west rejoice in the ruin of all such wild-cat ventures, and have no pity for promoters who suffer in such failures. There is an added interest for Og-den Og-den people in the pages delineating the love affairs or a former Ogdenite. r ,- . |