Show i I I THE TEE EMBASSY BALL Acton Davies writes of new rew version of The Embassy Ball BaJ There was just as great difference be he between between tween the Lawrance Orsay who vho ap appeared appeared last st night at Dabs Dalys in Augus Augu Augustus Augutus Thomas The Embassy Ball and the Lawrance dOrsay who appeared in Augustus Augutus Thomas The Earl of or Pawtucket as there is between The Embassy Ball and one of the earlier Thomas successes like In Mizzoura or Alabama for instance In nei neither 1 ei either ther ase ise was the change an improve improvement im 1 roe ment Success has almost ruined ruin d Mr dOrsay at an actor He was no more like the deliciously droll droU Englishman who made The Earl of Pawtucket a t success than a caricature is like lile a photograph He simply offered a huge burlesque of himself was nus so overdrawn Yn as to manner and so over oyer accentuated as to speech that it soon lost even eyen the humor of a caricature and became tiresome The Tue hero of The Earl of Pawtucket t was pas un 1111 undoubtedly undoubtedly ly an ass hut but he lie certainly was vas wasa vasa a gentleman the hero of The Tha Th Embassy J I Isy sy sIr Ball Mr Thomas has made mad aim sim simply I ply a blundering fool It is a sad I awakening for the admirers of both I men For Mr Thomas of course a arlay play IID like The Embassy Jall is sm ply a transitory eclipse but for Mr dOrsay unless he can reclaim him himself himself himself self quickly the outlook is serious Any ordinary American actor could have overacted the role of f an affected Englishman quI as successfully as ashe ashe ashe he did last night ni ht There was not the slightest variety to his work In his curtain speech Mr fr ay y said saW that in this play pIa Mr lr Thomas had made ma p a dramatization of nim him as he H really p was vas If this be so chen hen by all means let us have the usual but much more attractive Mr dOrsay dOrsa because it is pathetic to see an actor puncture his own on artistic reputation as deliberately erate as he hc did last night There are lots of witty lines In the new Thomas play Lots of them raised laughter for the moment but b t even een they could not conceal the skinniness of the plot It is a very bare and conventional ll story which The Embassy Ball tells tens tensa a plot which is as impossible us ss i De Do Lancey was and twice as thin An Englishman in Paris meets an American girl and goes with her to get geta a bicycle license By a mistake they sign their names to a marriage li hi license license cense instead and the girl instead of signing her own name signs igus the name of the girl whose bicycle bIcy le she is rid riding riding ridin ing in Afterward the Englishman an gets a billet at the English embassy in Washington and here he meets both girls and his marriage certificate turns up and makes a number of com corn complications complications The one clear character characterization characterization characterIzation is a western politician admirably admirably admirably ably played by George Clarke and by the way it is a genuine pleasure to see Mr Clarke once more on the stage of Dalys where he has spent nearly a quarter of a century of active ser service service service vice |