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Show I ? ! 1 "PETER PAN." ;L ! Harper's Weekly publishes the following ill from its London correspondent in regard to I II j "Peter Pan," J. M. Barrie's new play: ' ; f- Nobody but Mr. Barrie could have written it; nobody but he would ever have had the courage to conceive it. Fairyland, and the dreams of a i boy of ten, and all the logical topsyturvyness of childhood dramatized actually dramatized! You begin in a nursery and you end in the Never and tucked up in bed with a gigantic dog for a and tucked up in bed with a gigantic dag for a nurse; you have them taught how to fly by Peter Pan and fly they do out of the nursery window, to where Peter lives underground with boys who have been spilled from their perambulators by careless nurse-maids; you have everything you ever did in those early waking dreams that no sleeping ones ever rival afterward fights with wolves, gorgeous Stevensonian battles with pirates, intoxicating Fenimore-Cooperish wallow-ings wallow-ings in the blood of Indians; you have, in short, yourself as you always knew you would be if only you had your chance the invincible patriot, the reckless swashbuckler, the tireless enemy of the Jolly Roger, and the casual rescuer of beauty in distress. All this "Peter Tan" gives you, this and much else; till you feel that justice has been done to your merits at last. That there are in it passages that seem overstrained, and some, though not many, "false notes" is very possible; but who cares for that? When a genius can makes us all' remember whatitoo many of us forget, can take us back, and can reconstruct the very essence es-sence and vitality of childhood, it is the part of wisdom to accept without cavil. That is how London has accepted "Peter Pan." That, too, of a surety is how New York will accept it. . & & & Georgia Caine, the prima donna of "The Earl and the Girl," has had a more varied experience than almost any other woman in comic opera. Miss Caine began her career in a ten cent theater in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1894, says the New Yorker. Two years later she was being featured in a big production of "Lost, Strayed or Stolen." From that time to this, Miss Caine has been in the front rank of commediennes. "The Earl and the Girl," by the way, is to be the initial attraction at the Shuberts' new theater in Philadelphia, the Lyric, opening there on September 4, and going into the Casino, New York, on September 18. ' 5 5 My father was a personal friend of Stuart Rob- son, the veteran comedian, now dead, and was fond of telling anecdotes of the man whom he considered the greatest actor on the American stage," said Louis G. Hammel to the Milwaukee Sentinel. "According to one of them, Robson once sent a check for $100 as a wedding present to a friend who was to enter the hymeneal state. His theatrical engagements precluded his personal per-sonal attendance at the ceremony, to which he sent his daughter as a representative of the family. fam-ily. "My father was conversing with Robson when the daughter came home from the wedding, about which Robson asked many questions. " 'When your friend saw your check,' said the daughter, 'he was so overcome with emotion that he cried.' "'So he cried, did he?' said Robson. 'How long did he weep?' " 'Oh, about a minute,' said the girl. "'Only a minute!' shouted the comedian, with that curious squeak in his voice that made him famous in the character of Bertie the Lamb, 'why I cried half an hour after I signed the thing!' " 5 The title of Clyde Fitch's new comedy for Maxine Elliott, in which she is to appear in New York early in September, has been changed from "My Girl Joe" to "Her Great Match." tC First Insurance Magnate What is your favorite favor-ite theatrical production? Second Insurance Magnate "Other People's Money." Baltimore American. |