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Show "The Crust of Society" Successful. BOSTON, Dec. 21. "The Crust of Society" presented at the Globe theater by a company specially organized for the production by John Stetson, is a box office as well as an artistic success. The play is an adaptation by Louise Imogen Guiney and William Seymour of Dumas "Demi-monde." The company is an excellent one, in which are Joseph Haworth, Carrie Turner, Edgar L. Davenport, Joseph E. Whitney, Harry Saint Maur, Jane Stuart and Edythe Proctor, who is in private life Elita Proctor Otis, the well known New York society woman and elocutionist. Miss Otis surprised even her friends. There was none of the expected awkwardness, and a brilliant future for the fair debutante is assured. There are twelve characters, equally divided between the sexes, in the "The Crust of Society." Of these but two, one man and one woman, are presumed to have led pure lives. Dumas has depicted faithfully a phase of existence with which he seems to have been familiar, and in so doing he has made an intensely interesting story, but claim of Manager Stetson that the play points a moral is laughable, for dealing practically only with immorality it can never rise to the plane of partial decency. It is seriously asserted by competent critics that "The Crust of Society" is a stronger drama than "Camille." Great credit is due the American adapters, who have succeeded in telling an unqualifiedly immoral story without the aid of a single suggestive sentence. From a strict dramatic standpoint "The Crust of Society" is a gem. Didactically considered, it is dangerous, in that it acquaints persons with a real and deplorable condition of the existence of which most of them are now happily ignorant. LEE WENDELL. [illustration] ELITA PROCTOR OTIS |