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Show By GEORGE JEAN NATHAN. WINTHROP AM ICS has paid the penally of his admiration for Granville Barker. The penalty is called "The Morris Dance," and was written by Barker from the story of "The Wrong Box," by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne, and also staged by Barker. The result to tiiose who long sinre have analyzed the Barker tradition tra-dition into all its true emptinesses is plain enough. And this result is the very poorest play and the verv poorest poor-est example of staging thus far re-. re-. vealed in Mr. Ames's estimable Little Lit-tle theater. Out of the more or less familiar story of "The Wrong Box" a so-. so-. railed pursuit farce, you will recall, with a corpse substituted for the more conventional lottery ticket of such pursuit farces as "The .Million" Barker Bar-ker has distilled an uttcrlv humorless stage manuscript which, to boot, is so thoroughly vague and disconnected j-1 one who has not read "The rong Box" must be at a considerable loss to understand what the stage W traffic is about. And this worse than amateurish manuscript Barker has staged in such a manner that its defects are made to appear even more dazzlingly conspicuous than might have been the case had a more adroit fellow been entrusted with its theatrical theat-rical promulgation. In an effort to relieve the corpse idea of unpleasantness a successful effort, in the main Barker lias at the same time relieved the farce of what intrinsic drolleries it may have possessed. In the many scenes into which t lie manuscript is divided there is vastly less merriment than in a single scene of even the least good of the Keystone motion picture farces . and the success of such a farce as "The Morris Dance" depends very considerably upon humors not greatly great-ly different from the tomfooleries of these film pieces. One regrets and deeply that Mr. Ames, who ts assuredly one of the talented figures in the American theater, should so have succumbed to what are, very largely, the hollow pretenses of this Granville Barker. But he has now. let us hope, learned his lesson. And let us further hope that henceforth he will return to the staging of his own productions. Ames Is a better man than Barker. It is a pity that he Is uot himself convinced con-vinced of the fact. dall ' and "Mr. Lazarus." here makes Ins metropolitan debut on the music show stage and discloses himself as probably Die most agreeable juvenile in the business. The leading women are the Misses Anna Wheaton and Marie Carroll; and the beauty side of the exhibition is commanded "by those alumnae of the Academie Ziegfeld, the Mademoiselles Johnston, Jusune, an'l Davieg, Marianne, tfelf-conscioua tair ones, these are and physically as graceful as frozen rubber but if one loo us no further than the countenance, counte-nance, the esthetic sensation is a highly soothing one. The entertainment as a whole is worth a dozen or two "Have a Hearts," "Love o' Mikes" and other such music si iows currently running on and off Broadway. Raymond Com-siuck Com-siuck is to I.e congratulated for having hav-ing with such dispatch and in so very .satisfactory a way found a substitute for tho unhappy "Go To It." Another music show "Canary Cottage," Cot-tage," by Oliver Morosco and Elmer Harris and called upon to open the attractive new Morosco theater in Forty-fifth street west. The politeness polite-ness of the Princess- exhibit is here entirely lacking and the humors of the evening wooed rather by the "Johnny Get Your Gun" methods. The lyrics by Earl Carroll are clumsy and of obvious materials, and the chorus Is as deficient In looks as a broken mirror. The audience is invited, in-vited, in this entertainment, to laugh at fat ladies rolling upon the floor, fat gentlemen in green pajamas and similar delicate whimsicalities. The tunes are commonplace. The company contains, as its chief com!ues, Herbert Corthell, Charles Riiercles and Miss Trixie Friganza. Still another music show "You're in Love." by Hauerbach and Friml, and to be heard at the Casino. A very agreeable score of the popular kind one of the best of the season, indeed wedded to a pedestrian libretto. li-bretto. The company includes Miss Marie Flyrm. a rather affected ycAmg lady, and Miss Florine Arnold ; and the Messrs. Lawrence Wheat, Albert Roberts and Harry Clarke. The staging of the exhibit Is fairly attractive. at-tractive. The resistance piece of this v stag'ng constats In the swinging1 of Mis Flynn out over the heads of the audience, MiBS Flynn being attached to the end of a long1 pole. An excellent excel-lent idea. If only they would utilize it in some of our Broadway dramatic theaters and substitute for Miss Flynn the authors of the. dramas currently cur-rently being played there! . U r T - , ' 4.-- -a v t - i . - v-; , ' i C t " V V (J I of - . " t v . J f ? - t V , J i f K V I I ' - - " " J f , v f r , t s k r f i " s ' Fritz Kreisler, the world's greatest violinist, who will appear at the tabernacle tab-ernacle Friday, March 23, under auspices of the Musical Arts society. The company presenting "The Morris Mor-ris Pa nee" is not especially good, save in the instances of John L. pnino and Herbert Yost. Richard Bennett i is not suited to farce. And Ferdi- nand Goitsehalk, generally a likable name, is here revealed In rather poor etlie. Rut tin- fault is very probably manuscript's. Another farce "Johnny. Get Your Gun," by E. L. Burke and on view in the Criterion. To mo at least, a sad, . tad evening. The eyes behold again the noble, vuiirnr Americano who comes Into a tashinnahle house on i Long Island and endears himself to (lie vokel audience bv making loud feh of all tho well-bred characters In tVe play. This recipe, of course, is as familiar a s a ma n who 1 : n s just had his sixth rock tail. From the early day o "Fashion" with its unmasking un-masking of tlie villainy of the duke by t he viri units T'nited S' atcs of American, down through tho long catalogue to the plays of "The Man From Home" species, and stiil further down the list to the William Hortuo brews out of the Tarkimcton-Wiison manuscript, tho fable has pve-r been and is stdl ever with us. Mr. Burke has done not hiuc with t he a nc if nt material but to make of it a job quite as bad as Hod ire mario in ".Fixing Sister." The company presenting the d incus t ota Is a dor'-n persons, including in-cluding one actor. The latter is Louis Benuisoii wim. (hough given somewhat some-what to lime-light t endoneies and audio nee -casing, h ; t least in comparison com-parison with the r-'.st of persons on the stage a ski! I'ul pa ntaloon. Tho S'-onery used in too production is of as mediaeval a technique as the play. Since the inauguration of the Princess Prin-cess theater as the home of. musical coined v In miniature, it has disclosed no entertainment one-half so i ay Its present offering. "Oh. Hoy !" Wi-th Ivrles at once fresh and dexterous dexter-ous fthoe the work of the clever P. G. Vodehou;e 1 . with t unos as tinkling tink-ling as s'nighheils ('these the work of .Icromn Kirui. and with several ladies la-dies as personable as one nn'nt desire de-sire (these the collaborative work of God Almighty :i nd Fa ibis v, t ho mo-disH mo-disH . the exhibit is in all directions superior to "Very Good Fd lie" and i:s hook of the u'cce. by Mr. WO'lehouso ;irl Guy Helton, whiie neither wildly d roll nor astonishingly fresh, is amla-le and polite; and tho staging of tho entertainment is in a like a unable- and rolito key. Torn Powers, late of "Mile -a-Minute-Ken |