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Show THE CARTER NOW "TWO WOMEN" Collier Reading His Own Stuff -"Whoa Mamma, Woe," Tells of the Lady Prolific. BY FRANKLIN FYLES. New York, Dec. 9. Actors talk loftily of "creating" the characters that have been created by others for them to portray; but Louise Leslie Carter and William Collier really did write the roles for themselves in the plays they are giving to Broadway; and their interpolatory work as authors shows that they know the particulars of their work as actors. Mrs. Carter's writing has made for herself in "Two Women," the most loquacious lo-quacious and voluble heroine yet performed by this actress. The curtain is up almost three hours. She is in view two and a half. She talks not less than one and three-quarters. Hamlet is said to be the longest part ever acted in English. But no other woman than this one, I am sure, has spoken half so many words in any single play. There are enough of them for a leading role in one of those Chinese plays that have an act for each evening of a week. David Belasco thought, when he took up the job of putting Mrs. Carter on the stage, that her personality suited her for comedy; tests in two facetious plays were disappointing. She was temperamentally red-headed, and a shift was made to the Bernhardt-Sardou sort of emotionalism. Mrs. Carter studied the Bernhardt rapidity of utterance, ut-terance, violence of language and ferocity of action; ac-tion; and has any other American actress come so near to - duplication of the French artist? All the roles piovided by Belasco were calculated in Sardou ways to enable her to be Bernhardtian. "Two Women" is of French origin. Rupert Hughes made a version in English. Mrs. Carter wrote out the main role to thrice its first length. Determined to accelerate her former vocal speed and attain a velocity unprecedented, she put every ev-ery thought into as many different phrases as she could devise, besides repeating them over and over verbatim, and carried the excess of language so far that she couldn't give the other characters time to say much. And she enacts both of the f women mentioned in the title. When one has died talking, she starts In with the other. Mrs. Carter has never been more vividly the-ifj the-ifj atrlcal, nor more Intensely dramatic; and the play's theme Is one to yield In abundance those tumultuous outbursts with which she moves audiences audi-ences very deeply. A painter and profligate from America comes across a poor young seamstress in Paris, befriends her and marries her. They are congenially happy in poverty until she dies just as he learns that an invention will enrich him. That makes a grim first act. But the second is gay with a carousal where the widower goes to -see a physical counterpart of his deceased wife. He hires this woman to pose for him to complete a portrait of his mourned spouse. Mrs. Carter is now the wickedest among the ST drinking, screaming, cursing cocotes at the Bal Tabarin. Tourists who have slummed In Paris can imagine the scene In which she depicts feminine fem-inine depravity. The widower engages her to pose; and in the third act she is serving as a model for him to finish the cherished portrait. He finds that, besides the likeness of face and figure, she is a duplicate in voice; also, in mind and manner, now fut she Is away from inebriate revelry rev-elry and iu. ced by the decency of his studio J in a rural rb. She loathes and deplores her bad behavior. I The young woman will love the artist. Inevi- i tably. But what will happen to the man? She is such a complete repetition of his wife that, sometimes, a delusion that they are one and the same comes over him. He is enamored of her without knowing it; for the idea of his loving this befouled creature from the mire of immorality i doesn't come into his mind; and she has no ex- I pectatlon that they will become even vicious sweethearts, much less husband and wife. There are so many turnings and twistings in the love affair such wooing by the man followed by recanting such gleams of happiness for the woman darkened suddenly by the gloom of de-j de-j spair so great a number and variety of extreme ' turbulences in her acting that the close is some thing of a relief, although tearfully sad. The art-I art-I 1st Is wounded in his eyes by the bullet of her discarded and jealous possessor. The physician ' Is uncertain whether his sight has been lost or saved. The bandage worn since the duel is to be removed. If he can see he will avow his love to the woman and ask her to marry him. If he is blind he will go away silently and she shall never , know. He is taken into the next room. The audi- ence and she are left In suspense. He reappears I In the doorway. His eyes look normal. "Thank God he can see," she cries. He moves towards her. A table is in his way. He stumbles against it. He can't see. He is hopelessly blind. He bids her adieu. She starts . to go, but irresolutely shuts the door with her- self still In the room. ""My love goes with her," he moans; "my life will be all black In my blindness." Thus unwittingly he has told the truth to her. Instantly she is in his arms. The play is over. "Ill Be Hanged If I Do," otherwise by Edgar Selwyn. contains a character written by William Collier for himself. He is his own boss with this farce in a theatre bearing his name. A New York actor manager like those that abound in London? He is and he is not. A popular English Eng-lish dramatic '''' -"'1th the literary sense to find good plays and Ue business knack to turn them Into money, may occupy a London theatre throughout season after season. Such achleve- , ments are quite possible in New York, but not de sirable by players, because there is vastly -more profit in tours. So Collier's name will stay on his theatre after "I'll Bo Hanged" has had its time ' there, but he will be going v.ith it from one city (ContinuBu on Pago 12.) i i I NEW YORK THEATRICALS. (Continued from Page 7.) to another. Thus we haye theatres named for Maxine Elliott, Alia Nazimova, James K. Hackott, Lew Fields, Joe Weber and George M. Cohan; but these actor-managers spend little of their time in their own houses. 'The money is on the road," is a common saying among showmen and it is true in a way. When their plays are extremely costly In outfits, they are content if the stays here cover the investments, leaving for clear 'profits the excess of income over outgo on the ensuing tours. As to the new play. It is of a year's growth, beginning with a sketch written by Selwyn for an occasion and acted principally by Collier. The idea of it was that a young New York rounder gave a farewell supper as a bachelor the night before, be-fore, the day set for his wedding pretended to oversleep from drink and didn't go to the church at the time appointed for the ceremony, thus releasing re-leasing the girl he loved, but who desired to marry mar-ry another fellow. Collier was so funny as the dodger of wedlock that he and Selwyn set out to extend the brevity to an evening's length. The outcome is "I'll Be Hanged if I Do," named for the fellow's phrasing of his refusal to marry when he didn't wish tp except that the word "hanged" is a substitute for one that you may guess. The cast contains a congenial and mutually helpful Collier family party. William Collier's new and pretty wife, Paula Marr, figures in the fiction as his Nevada sweetheart. Her real little boy by a former husband, is billed as William Collier, Jr., and acts quite in his stepfather's way as his actual mother's saucy brother about to become his true stepfather's brother-in-law. Collier's Col-lier's sister, Helena Collier Garrick, is as funny as he and much like May Irwin is the mother of his wife in reality and pretense. I've half a notion no-tion to offer a prize for the biggest complication complica-tion of relationship from that layout of Collier's in "I'll be Hanged If I Do." A burlesque called "Whoa Mamma Woe," tackles the mother theme merrily. The mother in this case, having been when young a bedevilling typist in Wall street offices, went into the business busi-ness of giving birth to children with a separate father for each. She expected to make a fortune by settling damage claims out of court. A financial finan-cial panic impoverished all the papas and left mamma like the old woman of the domiciliary shoe, with so many boys and girls that she didn't know what to do other than utilize them as the ballet and chorus of a stage show. One thing done in the show is to exhibit the girls in silhouette. Mamma has brought them up with chic and cheek t catch rich husbands and so get into good society. To set them clerking, clerk-ing, typing or any other honest work would hurt their matrimonial chances, she thinks; yet they must earn a living till married; so she has them throw their unidentifiable shadows on a big screen in a studio. It is the old-time shadow pan- tomlme of the negro minstrels feminized and beautified. The figures, some draped scantily and others not at all, are shaped in black on a white surface in changeful poses with daringly artistic effect. The Johnnies in the play tear down the cloth and capture the concealed models. mod-els. The Johnnies in the parquet keep their seats in dazed delight, without roitous outbreak. |
