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Show CANDLER STARTS WITH MOVIES Revival of "A Scrap of Paper" Has John Drew and Ethel Barrymore as Its Co-stars; Cast Is a Notable One. - By Vanderheyden Fyles i Nw Y ?'!(. Mr 13U. irtiK? OF PAPER"-A comply, in thrco arts. Vic'orl"" Sardou. (Empire lhMlir. Trt- ii Glaciers Hif-i-les n.ilton : " Puller Molli.-h -.fmoBcna Eri(i(it RlPVlhltlinK 'y'5' Walter f oluciiinx Krmik M.-foy jl'L'da RotorlUe Elhp! Harry mors 'Vd, ta Glaciero Mary Holnnrl ''" T.nnbie" J-frroy l-ewi !'i!-V Dupont Mrs. Tlioma.s Whiffy - -1m ll9lRn 'r i JCOTHP3R new theater threw open A' its doors the other evening. (Have you ever observed that a new ubllc building always "throws open ,r doors," as though tho net wpre hov unpremeditated, almost in-Irrational in-Irrational and frantic'.''). Thp new Sum is on the south side of Foriy-..ennd Foriy-..ennd street, elbowed into a place ."' the sun (1. ? - electric tight signs) hrtween the Eltlnge and Harris tha-t-r in that short block between liven th and Eighth avenues (manors (man-ors call It "west of Broadway, trith no reference to plebian Kighth avenue), which now has ten theaters mlts credit, or discredit, as you like o put it. The stretch of Forty-econd Forty-econd street is locally called Theater ,iiey The Candler is," In part, under the management of tireless George y Cohan, who no sooner unloads -alf a dozen theaters than he begin! be-gin! taking on new ones. Like Eve-lvn Eve-lvn xesbtt, it is nretty enough to be talked about. The outer lobby is I'easantlv gold- and white and flow-gjr flow-gjr panels, but quite without the -iipnitv, BOlldlty and elegance of the inner "lobbv and the audiiorlum. The stauties of these more Important portions of the structure are largely due to Albert Herter. The six tap- ' estrles that beautify and enrich tho Inner lobby, hanging: against walls of raen stone, are bis work. Each is a scene from Shakespeare. The larger two are from "Othello" and "The Merchant of Venice," but, on ':e opening night, two show girls poke to me before I got to the other lapestriea and so Shakespeare went Into the discard, at least until a sec-rd sec-rd visit to the Candler. The auditorium is peculiarly happy n both design. and decoration, being intimate and subdued without being In the least either cramped or dull. The passages at the rear are all aious; but once seated, one pets a :i!e of comfortable closeness to the jtaee, so annoyingly lacking- in most -tiodern theaters. On the other hand, the chairs themselves are spacious, ifiih tapestry backs in various de-'Ir-ns. To speak personally, the rush to get the theater ready for the premier pre-mier was so great at the last that :nany seats, including mine, were not ' curely screwed to the floor, and, Inasmuch as I resemble C. K. Ches- ' terton (from just below the brain i down), I spent a supremely uncertain, nervous and unhappy evening. Doubtless that fault has been corrected cor-rected long ere this, though T. for one. shall not re-enter the Candler again without a screw driver in the Pocket of my evening clothes. Thpre are only i;,n nf these chairs (securely or insecurely screwed, as the case may be l on the orchestra floor, and about ;00 iu the single baleonv. so tho actors do not have to Indulge in that unhappy broadening- of style made necessary by the average modem mod-em auditorium. The walls and carpets car-pets nnd hangings are of a subdued, but net depressing, gray; there are relieving dashes of gold and pinkish orange; and the lights, while plentiful, plenti-ful, are not glaring or obtrusive. A splendid splash of color lights up the rear of the, auditorium, during intermissions, inter-missions, in the form nf a brilliant panel about 35 bv s feet, by Albert Herter. a "Fete Champetre," all loy and spring and sunlight. Unfortunately thltT piavhouse did not open with a new pbiv. In the autumn Mr. Cohan will put It in the front rank of his "producing houses," Broadway rumor has It, with Willie Collier in "Forward March!" a musical musi-cal comedy made from an F. Ajistey story. The auditorium ban that intimacy in-timacy that was so helpful to tho great success of the old Weber & Fields Music hall. and the lonesome lone-some lack of .which undoubtedlv had much to do with the failure of the genial burlesquers in their second home. The Candler, however, began with a long motion picture plav on the subject of Antony and Cleopatra Tt bad beetjL, made by the peuple who "pictured "Quo Vadts" so remarkably; remark-ably; but it hardly could be said to have much of that production's sensational sen-sational qualities. However, ft was above the motion picture overage, though that is by no means good enough for a house so charming as the Candler. Oh. joyous autumn, when the alluring little house comes into its own! TS Sardou coming- into fashion again? A During- the last year in London his "Diplomacy" has run neck and neck with "Within the Law" for popularity stakes, and Charles Froh-man Froh-man has alread engaged Blanche Bates., Marie Doro and William Gillette Gil-lette to head a cast in it over here next autumn. And now, lest we become be-come impatient, he has reopened his handsome F.mpire theater, after Maude Adams's long, delightful engagement en-gagement there in Barrie plays, with the Sardou onmedy of "Les Pattes de Mouche," long1 famous on the English-speaking stage as "A Scrap of Paper." The special interest lies in -the first appearance of John Drew and Ethel Barrymore as co-stars, with such popular, experienced performers per-formers as Mrs. Thomas Whiff en, Jeffreys Lewis, Mary Boland, Charlotte Char-lotte Ives, Fuller Mellish, Charles Dalton and .Ernest Glendlnning in the other roles of any consequence. When a play so widely known during- the last half-century as "A Scrap of Paper" is revived, two assumptions are usual on the part of critical reviewers re-viewers that everybody lufows the pint, characters and action far too wp1 fnr n description of tl.ni to bo. npces.D ry, or even .iu-st ina hie, ;i nd lhal the crilir must pretend ;ui intl-nui intl-nui to. hi-Ft- hand acquaints nr-e with the performances of the chief roles by all the famous actors associated witii them. Xnw, T am rtari nir enough t o do no Mich tiling. Few people po ( the thr-a tor R.s much as I do. a J id T suppose thirty years mav be taken as ahnut the avprasp ape; vet New York ritir! ntr almost twenty yars ha s offered of-fered oidy two oppnrt nnit ies of an v sort to see the comedy, and neither cast Included any of the famous names associated with the piece. Frankly, my "reminiscences" of "A Pcrap of Paper" are mostly second -hand. pothered from omnivorous reading- of every book about the stRjre I hear the name of and from alert attention at-tention to the conversations of mv elflers when a child, when "A Scrap of Iaper" was, a livelv, current subject. sub-ject. Records tell us that "I.es Pattes de Mnurhe" was acted for th first time anwhere at the Paris Crymnase, exactly ex-actly fifty-four years a fro this month, with Rose Cheri as the fascimi tintr a nd vivacious Suzanne de Rnseville. The ma n who wa s to writ "I nra " ("Diplomacy"', "Fedora," "Theodorn" and the drama Bernard Shaw- flubbed "T-a Toscadora." not to mention about seventy other dramas, farces and libretti, was in bis early twenties mid bad finished about a dozen plays, with few produced and none success - - ful. "Les Pattes de Motieho" marked, the turning- point; overnight. VIc-torien VIc-torien Sard cm became an author to be reckoned with; In his critique, written whun fresh from the. repetition repeti-tion srenerale, Francisque Sarcey said: "It is the first Htep taken by a young man who cannot fail to go far." In later years, Sard on often" told of his difficulties in Retting his manuscript even read, his almost frantic, anxiety a he sat on a bench outside the Gymnase durintr the premiere and bis -poverty while writing: it. "I recall re-call with pleasure." he wrote, "the hours I spent iu scribbling and erasing: eras-ing: during the scorching summer weather in my quarters under the roof. Tho ceiling was so low that to breathe fresh air in comfort and to have a good llht for my work I had to push my table under the skylight which lit up this den and. thrusting my head under the glazed window"-sash, window"-sash, write with my hand inside the attic and my forehead resting outside on the tiles. All these things make me smile today, but they did not make me weep even then." SOON after the Paris production, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Wigen. leading lead-ing London, actors of their day, produced pro-duced an English translation (called, if I remember - correctly, "The Adventures Ad-ventures of a Billet Doux"). with themselves as Prosper Couramont.and Suzanne; but it failed some authorities authori-ties say because Mrs. Wigen was no longer young enough to realize the seductive heroine and the piece, prac-, prac-, tically disappeared In England until 1S76. In the rueantime, the belated American premiere occurred in Boston Bos-ton in 1872, at the Globe, with W. R. Floyd as Prosper and Carlotta Le-clorq Le-clorq (aunt of Fuller Mellish. the dried-up Brisemouche of this week's revival), as Suzanne. In later years, at the Boston Museum, Charles Barron Bar-ron and Annie Clarke were famous in these characters; but the YVallack's i theater revival (March 10. 1879. and kept in "Wallack's repertoire until bis ' retirement) gained the greatest country-wide fame. Lester YVallack and Rose Coghlan had no more -popu-i lar roles than these; and, though James O'Neill. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Walcot, Jeffreys Lewis, Genevieve Ward. Louise Moodie and many other favorites of forty to twenty-five years ago, undertook the parts, they remained re-mained the undisputed property, so to speak, of Wallack and Miss Coghlan until the coming of the Kendals. Even after that, Miss Coghlan kept the comedy in her repertoire, Frederick de Belleville being a frequent Prosper. In the light of later years, dt is interesting in-teresting to recall a rather inconspicuous incon-spicuous revival at the old New York -Lveeum, about thirty years ago, because be-cause Helen - Dauvray. the star, had as her leading man young E. H. Soth-ern, Soth-ern, an actor who then had nothing much- to recommend him beyond bis good looks and his famous father's name. ' N The coming of the Kendals. in 1889. marked a new era for "A Scrap of Paper." In 1876, when manager of the London Court theater, John Hare had presented a new version of "Les Pattes de Mouche," made by J. Pal-grave Pal-grave Simpson, with Mr. and Mrs. Kendal in the leading roles and himself him-self as the mischievous boy. renamed in that arrangement, Archie. This was a mere "stunt" on Hare's part, for, though then comparatively young, he was Identified with elderly roles and, indeed, n the same bill, in a one-act afterpiece, appeared as a very old man. This time "A Scrap of Paper" Pa-per" was a great success, and flare kept it in his repertoire throughout his management of the Court and during the nine years he and Kendal directed the London St. James's joint- , , Iv. But after the first "run," he played the fussy old entomologist, which character introduced J. E. Dodson to America when the Kendals Ken-dals came over in 1889, when Violet Yanbrugh and Seymour Hicks also made their debuts here, the latter, an unknown stripling, playing Archie. And, just by the way. William Seymour, Sey-mour, stage director of the Drew-Barrvmore Drew-Barrvmore revival, and long since retired re-tired from the stage, played the. boy In the first American performance. Oddly enough, not only has John Hare" acted every male role In the piece, at one time or another, hut Charles Dalton, the Baron de la Glaclere at the Empire, has done so, too. ando Jeffreys Lewis. the M'lle Zenobie. has acted every female role. To those of us whose theatrics I memories go no further back than the middle '90s. only cut-rate stock company com-pany revivals and a version called "Marv. Mary. Quite Contrary," can have "made the comedy familiar unless un-less we happened to be in Australia about fourteen years ago. when Charles Cartwright and Olga Nether-sole Nether-sole played Prosper and Suzanne. About eight years ago a stock company com-pany at Proctor's gave the play with ilenrv Woodruff nnd Katherine Grey in these, characters, a nd James Ca-rew Ca-rew (Ellen Terry's current husband), Edwin Arden. Wright Huntington. .Max Fig-man. Augustus Phillips. J. H. Gilmmir William Ingersoll and Robert T. Ilaines and Lillian La wrence, Eugenie Blair. Edna May Spooner. Arieie Blood. Amy Ricard and Sarah 1 Truax have Ailed them, under similar' circumstances. in other American cities. The only "Broadway" revival was also made about eight years auo. and was a rather muddled ver-si'on ver-si'on by Eugene Presbrey. was called "Marv Mary. Quite Contrary." and had Henrietta Crosman. not at her brilliant best, as the star, with Boyd Put mini as her very ineffectual lending lend-ing man. IN nothing I have ever seen them do have Ethel Barry more and John I.uew appeared to more advantage. The play sncecds or fail? on the high i-mnedv 'abilities of its chief performers. perform-ers. Give a mun of the world, with savnir fa ire. a quick wit and a rcudy humor tu see his own predicament in a detached wa .v. and a woman with hp same qualities, plus a very fascinating fas-cinating personality, and the comedy cannot fa il to entertain ; and surely no two players on our stace today fulfill, ful-fill, these requirements much more satlsi'acioriiy than John Drew and ivs mce. The" comedy is a duel uf to wits, with tjhe other persons nieirbc incidental. Prosper Coura moni has returned to France after a trip around t he norld. He took it to forest girl lie thought had played him l'y's- 'He return? after tnree years to tiro her married to fl jealous baron, a nd be becomes infatuated with her brd-liant brd-liant sister. This character, nf course, is Suzanne. Acted by Miss Ri rrynmrp : Cbarlee Palton and Mary Roland h r th buron and bis brid-; and I-VP.-r Mellish. .Ttrrys Lewis and Mr Thoma s W'rdffen (who wa s re.;-. rd with tumultuous, proline en f rp'ri :-r are a fussy entomologist. b ':ar-a ':ar-a s"d governess h nd a houkeeppr-. and Ernt GiT.dirmtric and r'rlotto I vps, an urmann trea b! boy a nd gi i all s'implv hnvprlne about th n'"t iu the old - fashioned effort for vnn-r,: y relief." Well --slrie T refuse to takp it for granted that you know- all about "A Scrap of Paper," just because i t s a ,,lo4c Prosper d scovcrs that Louise did not throw him over in heartless coquetrv, but left a letter for him In a place thev had for amatory notes, whk-h he tailed to get. So each has go ne through three years behevl g the other was the faithless one. The note is still in Us hiding place. Prosper Pros-per and Louise no longer love each other but each desires to secure the scran of paper: she to hold it for her ownPprotectlon. be to use lU.swiJ-non lU.swiJ-non against her opposition to his pm- , poe of marrying her sister Tnen tl e . paper chase begins. The fragment is found hidden, found again. half charred dropped out of a windon. s olen and finally burned to amies by ti e teutons husband. ,who has no u lea what he is destroying to light his clgaf It was at this point, the ending end-ing of the play, that the theme began be-gan with Sardou. He was in a tobacco to-bacco shop near the Theatre Beaumar-cftafse, Beaumar-cftafse, one day, when he pooped to nick 10 a scrap of paper with which o llglU his cigar, only to i n it was a vei v tender letter from Maiie Laurent Lau-rent the famous actress. wr ten to her son. then a boy m school. But critics have found strong evidences of he influence of Poe. of whose works Sardou was a student, especially n the expedient of "concealing the piece of paper by, leaving . in oo -inicuously plan sight, as in ine Purloined Letter." It was Sardou s naC of hinging his plots on lost or stolen letters as in this pla. tei nande" "Diplomacy and many other, oth-er, that led A. B. Walkley. the London Lon-don crillc to say the trick was the sole basis of " his claim to be called a - "Vactlng'ieeds no particular de-. scrlption: the methods of Jo.il Lnev. V'tl el Harrvmore and the others aic oo well known; no new Phases were revealed Mr. Drew is never at his , oeon rtrat nights: not. I shou Id say : through nervousness o. lack of .e appreciation, but simply because he i, exactly suited lo him. that. w.i. i,c is sure of himself. Ins a. mire, s annul fail to be delighted: and a rerun re-run to modern clothes docs no, make the suns of advaiwlns ytar.-. so pain-fnll.- eNidcnt as in h.s Henerl . ..-I ..-I , pies' Miss Karrymnre plays .Vi" will, dash, a scintillating br. hancy nnd inlinlle .-harm. It seems s.ianKe " , a woman hlessc.l with such al-incomparable al-incomparable beauty makes no efforl 10 keep down l.er stzc. s' e ,ca-h"d hulk suggestive o Ma li'yiu Si 111. her ail'lcd Wi!. 'vliich ,;lk'; her look ,"iisl...-abr,- .u.lcr Hum' sue is. and 'be covering up o: :r.r ,. v rinklel throai. urlng Ih.ni more iienriv ol an age iu ap-rnCHncc, ap-rnCHncc, ,Hl. Ibereforp. make them n."t, in.onial n-.me suitable. fv f nty I,'' Hr-lt un snic slag.-. MliM n .;, P rt,-ted with her 1 1 nv':: in "Tiie t-'.auble .Siiop." wiipn Maud -..c if-Tfint; iv.iiiinn, making v !.ut is iiuhlh rr-cded ps'er rtrsl ap-p.-aranc.-. thonnl. ?ne .n. : Ha-.Mi .TniH .Ni-II 1'' ' 1 in ad-fnmi'y .p.y Ica, t-u,:ed r, ,-..umr. in !rr erandmot.i- int". sal Mrs. .lo-n lrr,. Ma.apror: br tuv.e .'r,d ii'i'nt Mr." an I .Mis. .-vdney f'-cw. woi-r,V: woi-r,V: cres and l.'m; te Wv ? Zf,,r hp.1 mother. Mr. and s. M K,. Rynk-n. Sir 1 -yTn veer, a nd ! ror own i ; '. ; Manner p;,r- rvni.-.'r', 'a pt.:in A o.-olui p. and . ! older n o' 'hp". B rry ;iiot. I a. nr,fnfv mi-take eir ulatrd in nrn-c- i -i- v it It i ! i p rvi vo 1 of "A cr:i p o' i-.ppr-' iba tbp 'Fa;:b!f .Shop" i or,-atrn;er.t ' rrvinorf 1 ntilv on" wilh .lohn Orew. whrpas she nlayPd with r.'m In '3nar.--That Imrrudont ounc t ouple and Top .cnuir of Psmf?, |