| Show THE TOUGH GIRL r A Bit of Character Acting Which has Created a nADA n-ADA LEWIS AND HER BIG HIT She Plays the Part of a Young Woman of the Slums and It has Made Her Famous To the East Siders of New York the name of Harrigan is soothing and mirth provoking at once for Harrigan gives to I them the stage amusement they like best and they are great theatre goers So when a few weeks ago Harrigan opened his new and handsome playhouse on Thirtyfifth streetwith his new characteristic play Reilly and the Four Hundred the p J c iI or U > ai r j i I ff J 1 1t > 1 tzl j t < t b f I fifJ h fl j i r f If i J i Ii 1I1 I JJIIJ j WI rg tfIt 1 to l1V Jl ADA LEWIS East Siders turned out in force The play was just what they expectedfull of roaring fun and quaint New York character charac-ter sketches but it had in it one or two scenes and character that set the whole town talking in less than fortyeight hours This character is down on the programmes as Kitty Lynch but the public knows her as Harrigans Tough Girl Her voice is I only heard during a scene lasting less than ten minutes but that short scene has undoubtedly un-doubtedly made her the most talked about I young actress in New York Her real name is Ada Lewis Miss Lewis began her theatrical work at I the Alcazar theatre in San Francisco where she first acted as a helper behind the scenes for the ladies of the company and afterward took small parts Finally I she joined Mr Harrigans company traveling travel-ing with it and doing minor work during the season of 1SSO90 The part which she plays now is a small oife yet it is the I I most important ope which she has ever r essayed and the fact that she has made it I the hifcfofa < Drononncedlysuccessful play I argues well 1 for her future Slip literally went to sleep unknown and awoke to lind i herself famous and if she does not allow SEBatfCacfi to mltkb Jitfr consider herself perI feetin her ai t she will doubtless hold and increase her claim on public attention She takes the rartof a typical tough I New York girl whose spieling shoes have been f pawned by her I brother and the c l scene occurs in the il pawnshop where VLfj J she is trying to I Y get them out of r f hock so that she lj J f may attend the I I 1J L police ball The t f tough young Tt man has been represented r 5i I J resented on the i 04 if IN 1 stage dozens of times but the 1il tough young tiff tl oman appears f tJi now for the first time You can see 11 + J ff i4 7 her any day in f lliit I real life by walk SAAY in I ing through one lof j Xew Yorks tenement streets but real life is no more natural than its counterfeit presentment at Harrigans I Dressed in an old jersey brown pulled out of shape and too short for her long ungainly arms the Tongh Girl at Har I rigans walks onto the stage exactly as thatough7girl icaljife walks along Hester Hes-ter treet orbherryHill i on the way to the corner salpqn itltbe rowler This gait I lis < characteristic With each step the heel comes down hard and the shoulders go up I Her head thrown slightly forward with its oidstraw f hat and somewhat frowsy bang the corners of her month droop a trifle and there is in the cadaverous looking look-ing face an unspoken defiance of everybody and everything that is not tough It is a bit of very artistic work a character sketch which has not been equaled in New York in many a long day Since her first appearance the newspapers news-papers have devoted columns to describing describ-ing Miss Lewis and her acting but they have all made the characteristic and egotistic ego-tistic mistake of asserting that New York is the only place where such girls as she mimics can be found The story has even been told of how she studied the ways of the girls in New Yorks slums in order to perfect her work and the assertion ham > been made A that she used togo 4 to-go to school in one of the tough a3 wards As a matter mat-ter of fact she has lived in San Francisco f Fran-cisco during most of her life and her character work is the result ot careful care-ful observation of the girls who worked in a big canning factory there which goes I of to show that contrary con-trary to the ideas of the New York l ME BROTHER HOCKED ME reporters human buoEs nature is much the same all the world over and New York is not unique The clothes which she wears on the stage were gathered from the wardrobes ward-robes of these Frisco canners and her dialect is patterned after theirs But when she says to the pawnbroker Saay Reilly I wan ter git me new speilin shoes out o hock Me brothers touched me for all I goty every one who has ever heard one of the real tough girls talk to her feller or try to explain things to the police justice recognizes the fidelity the accent at once |
