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Show "You Never : Can Tell" By a member of the oaldheaded row. Last Saturday evening the University Univer-sity players gave an excellent performance perform-ance of "You Never Can Tell." The theatre, while not crowded, was well filled with a friendly audience of college col-lege students and townspeople, all eager to welcome the visitors. At the first raising of the curtain the players were met with cnthualastlc cheers from the A. C. students and from that moment they felt that they were blest with a sprapathctlc audience and played play-ed their best. The only play by George Bernard Shaw that had been given In Logan .before "You Never can Tell" Is "Mrs. Warren's Profession" acted last June with Roso Coughlan In the title part. That much condemned, but sociologically sociologi-cally Interesting and realistic drama belongs to a series of plays that the author has well named Unpleasant while the farce last Saturday night Is found in the volume entitled Plays Pleasant, and well does it deserve its name It is full of delicate, delicious humour; It sparkles with modernity; It pokes fun continually at respectable hypocrites; and yet, in spite of its far-clal far-clal nature, It has an undercurrent of seriousness that makes us feel keenly how well Shaw knows the psychological psychologi-cal background of everyday human nature and that his characters, even with then whimsicalities, are scientifically scientifi-cally possible. Story of the Play. The plot Is the merest thread Xn English woman, troubled with advanced advanc-ed Ideas on the subjects of Woman's rights and the sacrcdness of her Individuality, In-dividuality, finds that she can no longer live with her husband and gets a divorce. She retires to Madeira to bring up her children and write books busting with twentieth century rot about women. After many years she returns to England with her three chll-dren.now chll-dren.now grown up. The oldest Is Gloria, Glor-ia, a charming girl, though somewhat snippy, who has Inherited all her mother's Ideas. The other two are Philip and Dolly, two irrepressibles about twenty years old. They know nothing of their rather and the play Is mainly taken up with their making his acquaintance and the love affair of Gloria with a young dentist. Meager as the plot Is yet It hints at the Idea that Shaw developed later with so much scientific accuracy In "Man and Superman," namely that woman was meant for marriage, that she Instinctively Instinct-ively seeks It, and that modern ideas about careers and individualism are powerless In this duel cf the sexes "With the modern form of education remarks the dentist, "1 have accomplished accom-plished more In loveraaklng with Gloria In eighteen minutes than 1 would have In eighteen months with the old fashlonod woman." In short, mind Is thu'glory of man; while with woman Instinct is the only faculty of account and It pushes her always straight In search of matrimony Nothing especially novel in tho Idea but It takes the clever gcnuls of a Shaw to present It In all Its finer shadings shad-ings As They Played it. To tho Interpretation of the various parts all the players brought much good will and talent with long and faithful training. Mr. Marshall and Miss Barnes In the parts of the two younger children were as hoydenlsh, pert, and intelligent as one qould wish but lacked the sa.vlng touch of refinement refine-ment that even such infants terrible should have. Mr. Cummlngs played the part of tho irascible father and Mr. Howclls that of a middleaged lawyer law-yer In a convincing way while Miss Stewart handled the dltllcult role of the up-to-date mot'ier with much skill, but one felt all tho time how much more might be made of ttie part. Mr. Young Is the typical clean cut good-looking oiing man that Gibson Gib-son and Richard Harding Davis have shown us so often In act and the novel. He made a handsome joung dentist and a very sincere and ardent lover. 'Uo has all the elements of a matinee Idol. Mr. Ilolman, who by tho way, is the next Rhodes scholar to go to Oxford from Utah, had the commanding com-manding voice and serlo comic dignity ota lawyer laying down the law and settling family squabbles. Mrx Tall-man Tall-man was a very amusing and servile waiter though his accent was more negro than Cockney, By far ttie best work of Die vast was done by Miss Loa Roberts, who Is well known to Logan people. In her 'first scenes her clear, cool, hard as nails, Intellectual tones suited perfectly the part of Gloria, and tticn. as the woman in her gradually grad-ually got the belter of tho reformer, she became charmingly coy and girlish. girl-ish. Natural, Intelligent and graceful, grace-ful, she was much more than an amateur ama-teur actress; she was Gloria, herself, as Shaw conceived her. As much cannot can-not be said of the other members of tho cast. Throughout they were excellent ex-cellent amateur actois with now and then a bit of Inspiration, but their acting as a whole, lacked the sincerity, sincer-ity, the convincing note, the realism of good professionals. The pleasure, however, that both they and the play gave the Interested audience was none the less genuine, and laughter and applause were constant during the whole performance R |
