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Show If DRAMATIC Hi j "THE DEEP PURPLE." H ,. Tho deep snow preceding "The Deep Purple" H did not have the usual effect of keeping many H1 away from the theatre. The audience was made Hi up largely of those who have anticipated the H'i coming of the Armstrong-MIssner play since it Bi was first produced in Chicago eighteen months H I ago, when our own Ada Dwyer created the role H1 of Frisco Kate. Her's was supposed to have been H ' the star part in the play, but as it happened, the Hlj finished product brought out the fact that the H leading parts were so generously distributed that H it was a difficult matter to discriminate between H' The original company, too, was .so perfect in Hf nearly every particular that honors were about H even, and while as a general thing it is unfair Hf to attempt a close comparison between an origi- H nal and a road company, the people at the Colo- H nial have such a fine understanding of their op- H portunities and so cleverly take advantage of all H of them, that the result 1s a splendidly acted play, HjJ tho work of the players equalling, with few ex L ceptions, that of those who created the roles, and Ht in many instances excelling. i "Tho Deop Purple" is molodrama, every Inch of it, though one so far removed from the class of productions under that much abused term as to mako it c'oan and strong and human, without a character or a situation overdrawn in any particular. par-ticular. The play Is built about a "badger game," a theme that has been seldom if ever used on the stage, particularly in the way that Armstrong and Mizner handle it, though having frequent repetitions in real life. As handled by the in genious and artful authors, there is nothing contaminating con-taminating in the staging of it, and on the contrary con-trary the situation is one calculated only to thrill, with no other suggestion than a highly dramatic effect, made possible by the skillful contriving con-triving of those who did the work. The idea in the beginning was bold, the attempt to formulate it so that it would be inoffensive was courageous. But the finished product looks so easy that it Is a wonder others have not put it into shape before. be-fore. The co-authors have succeeded in putting it together where a thousands others would fail, for the simple reason that they were not forced to draw on their imaginations; with their association asso-ciation and study of the lives of such people as they portray, it was the most natural thing in the world for them to put them on the stage, and in |