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Show Ml THEATERS WKj AT THE ORPHEUM. 'IK "Seven Keys to Baldpate," the clev-W clev-W er comedy evolved by George M. S Cohan from Earl Derr Blg&ers story If3$ of the same name, kept a large audl-gl audl-gl once guessing last night at the Oral! Or-al! Pheum theatre. The comedy, raving mm paid Ogden a visit last year, is al-BE al-BE moat too well known to need review-tfftt review-tfftt ing. Suffice it to say that its two acts 2f mark the passing of a night In, which TK a writer of popular novels writes a 8 m book, the contents of which are en- 9 K acted before the audience in a single stage setting. The only ' Real" action ac-tion in the play is in a prologue, wherein the novelist, William Hallo-well Hallo-well Magee, comes to Baldpate Inn to write his book aud is received by the caretaker and his wife, and an epilogue, epi-logue, wherein the novelist delivers the manuscript of his book to the caretaker of the inn. With tho knowledge given to them Jn the prologue, pro-logue, that what is to happen is merely mere-ly an "illustrated novel" as it were so cleverly constructed is the play that the auditors are conclusively led to believe that the plans of the novelist novel-ist are upset to the degree that he doesn't succeed in writing the book until they are made aware in the epilogue that they have merely been "reading a modern novel." We are constrained to give the playwright the further compliment of making this Illusion Il-lusion so strong as to bring forth the statement from tho play reviewer of our "morning contemporary" that the "novelist" wins the hand of "Mary Norton," his fiction heroine, along with a bet of $6000 which was his incentive in-centive for writing the book. Barring a habit of "swallowing" a word now and then, William Wagner, essayed the role of William Hallowell Magee very effectively. He Is an ex-(.niioni ex-(.niioni notnr and was ihoroucblv alive to the value of every detail in the play, last night. Louis Egan, in the role of Elijah Qulmby, gave an exhibition ex-hibition of character acting that was above criticism, while the work of Augusta Gardner as Mrs. Quimby was almost equally acceptable. Among the "fiction" characters were forcefully portrayed by Lidalee Gilvard, Pauline Eberhard, Ann Bert, Hairy Cowan, Jamea T. Ford, Chris Allworth, J. Ellis Kirkham, Chic. Burnham, Ernest Hoyer and Frank C. Bronson. " |