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Show BLANCHE BATES AND APPLIED KINDERGARTEN Blanche Bates, whom David Belaaeo will present in this city during the forthcoming road tour of that phenom enally successful New York production, "Nobody 'a Widow," ie a keen student of bumeo nature and an expert psychologist. psy-chologist. It la to Miss Bates'. gifts is the latter province of learning that both she and her manager, Mr. Belaeco. attribute much of her aucccsa in the portrayal and delineation of character. Indeed, Miaa Bates could scarcely help being well grounded in psychology, having hav-ing been originally educated and trained for kindergarten work, and being be-ing to this day one of the most enthusiastic enthu-siastic disciples of Froebel. , "To know r'roebel is to know little children, and to know little children is 'to know how to act," Miss Bates declared de-clared in a brief and pithy talk before i a recent convention of kindergartnera. "My peraonal obeervation of the child mind as a kindergsrten teacher, and what I learned from the atudy of the great Froebel as to how to stimulate that child mind, I strongly believe, hsve been of Immeasurable' influence upon anything and everything I have ever done in dramatie art," said Mies Bates, "for children are, after all, the great natural born actors children, thst is. of the kindergsrten ass. A little later the child beeomee aelf conscious, con-scious, but from the time when be first begins to walk and talk until about his fifth or sixth year he ia essentially and pre-eminently dramatie. Watch a child of S tell a storv or relate aome. incident inci-dent that baa seised upon its bsbv im agination and yon will aee an exhibition exhibi-tion of superbly perfect histrionic art art such ss ths best of ue can never hope wholly to equal because it ie all so unconscious, so direct, so simple, and. above all else, ao beautiful in its mirrorlike reflection of the subject matter. mat-ter. "For instance it may sound ridiculous, ridicu-lous, but it is the truth, nevertheleae the terhnioue with which I attain whatever I do attain in the role of Roxana Clayton in 'Nobody's Widow' wss learned sntirelv from a four year-old year-old child, a mere mite of a girl, the daughter of one of my friends. For two whole, precious, happy weeka laal summer the two of them were my guests st my farmhouse, and as my friend and I aewed or gossiped on the back porch, we were daily witnesses of the funniest funni-est drama that ever was ea atage or off. With ao ether property than a brakes golf stick, this mite' of 4 enacted en-acted ' Nobody 'a Widow every afternoon after-noon right there ia the corner of the porch. "The child had heard me reading my part, as I had time and time again, to her mother, aad with the beautiful un consciousness of childhood she straight way began to amuse herself by playing the part of Roxana to a duke of More land she had created by wrapping an old coat about the broken golf stick. Reing a true dramatic artist, ae all children are, she seeded no other properties, prop-erties, and ao there ia the ehaded corner cor-ner of the porch she proceedd to put her imaginary husband through his paces with a fidelity to grownap widow nature that fairly made the rest of ns The company supporting Miss Bates ju.nag .the roed tour of ' Nobody a widow" will be the same aa that seen in the New York production. |