The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 24

THE SUN, BALTIMORE, SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 25, 1927 Yours Truly, lit Who Gets MARYLAND REOPENS IRISH PLAYERS SCORE IN SEAN O'CASEY OPUS AS SHUBERT HOUSE Leon Errol Stars In Play There, Belasco Drama Is At Juno And The Paycock, Vividly Written And Acted, Brings Praise From Critic For Its Sincerity And Fineness. Ford's, And Knopf Company Will Present An dreyev Production At Auditorium. PAGE 2 Section 1 Hidden Slapped Here jivAnc JhAffiW)hNfciMM1lwl wiHty mHmmmmmmmmmmmiM whihhii By T. M. CI SUING.

Br ROBERT r. RISK. Special Corretpondence take back aoine new pantg purchased by Jack Boyle. New York, I ''HE major stages ol New York 1 were occupied last week with new offerings by the visiting troupes frdm across the water one from Ireland and one from Germany. The Irish Players on Monday evening brought another Sean O'Casey play, Juno and the' Paycock, to the stage of Gallo's Theater, a new and handsome edifice.

recently constructed and thrown open by Fortune Gallo, the opera impresario whose San Carlo company tours the country year after year, Mr. Gallo, being a broad-minded landlord, admits not only the opera companies to his fine, new playhouse but the dramatic troupes as well, and it is unlikely that be will soon be host to as magnificent a troupe ot actors ag these Dubliners, At the Century the Roinhardt con pany "brought forth Danton's Death on The scen prior to the taking back of the pants is one of quiet comedy, all of which is heightened to riobaus comedy as Jack chases the fleeing And yet, scarcely a minute after this, a sorrowing widow whose son has been killed in some new fight is brought into the room and the tence) "Ah, the pain of bringing 'em into the world is nothing to tho pain of seeing 'em go out." MUSIC A FACTOR. That goes through the theater aud strict seriousness is reestablished. But this does not Inst long, for when the widow is brought in she interrupts a convivial party. When she leaves thin proceeds.

At this party Juno and her daughter sing a duet, Home to Our Mountains, from II Trovatoro a numv-ber which, ia its lyrics alone, be- aeecnes mat domestic peace and love- Boyle household. But this does nn Tuesday night; spread this which has never pervaded the long; the Irish strain breaks out after all, Verdi was never a popular 1 hero In Dublin. So from that song the tune goes to You Can Take Him in the Parlor If He's Eye-rish. There are more Irish tunes and you can think of little else but the line which recurs in Alfred Noyes' poem, Come Down to Kew in Lilac Time the line which refers to a piece of music and comments, "Though its music's not immortal, a world has made it sweet." So for these Irish tunes, PLAYERS ARE PRAISED. One suspects that Sean' O'Casey owes as much to the Irish Players as they owe to him.

They give his plays perfect As a dramatist he-is a bit verbose and given to what is best called "fine" writing. He is not averse to writing in poetical references or to comparing a sweet-girl's" purity to that of a clear, running brook. Yet allusions such as this become entirely nStural in the experiencedand yet so charmingly unprofessional hands of these people. Arthur Sinclair, for one. tnW fh Horn and Inez, Jimmie MeCnllion Jack Stanley and a group of Tiller girls.

Clyde North and Anne Caldwell col laborated In the book of lyrics; Ray- mond Hubliell devised the musical score; Josef IJrhan designed the set tings and Ralph Reader staged the dances. Who's Who At Theaters This Week Leon Errol Studied Medi cine In Australia In The Days Of His Youth Before Stage Called. LEON ERROL, star of Gene Buck's Yours Truly, which will inaugurate the new order at the Maryland Theater this week, went on the stage by way ot the medical profession. fcrroi was born in Sydney, Australia. and was studying medicine at Svdnev TTI 11...

-t buiversiiy wiien mat institution found itself much in need of an original book and set of lyrics for the annual college play. Errol obliged. Then a plea was made for some suitable music aud Errol obliged again. The show was a huge success and Errol was called upon to direct all the university activities of tins type. When one of thet leading players became ill he donned paint and became an actor.

PILLS BECAME MEMORY. That settled.it. Pills became a mem ory and the stage the reality of his life. His first professional appearance iv as witn ucorge Rignold, remembered lor his Henry V. RienoM nlnvwl uu mis Miafcespearean repertory company for two years.

Then a passing circus lured hiin to new fields. He became a clown, acrobat and animal i trainer. Then he sailed'for America. In San Francisco he joined a traveling stock company. The earthquake drove him East and he signed a contract, to appear in burlesque under the that burlesque in the United States differed not from-, hnrlesnno i -i aur tralia.

While he was playine in thin fm of amusement Florenz Ziegfeld and Charles Dillincham secured his release and placed him in the 1919 Follies. BETH MERRILL. Beth Merrill, who plavs the feminine role in Hidden, the new Belasco production at Ford's this week, first attracted more than passing notice for her work in Ladies of the Evening, a Belasco production which opened in Baltimore a few seasons ago. While she was a schoolgirl in Chi. cago she decided on the stage as a career, but she knew no one connected witu tne theater.

Eventually she discovered an advertisement calling for a girl without stage experience to join roaa company playine the small towns outside Chicago. She answered it and was engaged at a small salarv which never materialized, as the company disbanded soon after starting out. ENTERED STOCK. Back in Chicago she secured a posi tion with the Lincoln Stock Company, playing ingenue parts. On the advice Leon Errol with his collapsible legs returns to town tomorrow.

fear of the vigilant Will Hays finding AND NOW LOS ANGELES BREAKS INTO THE STAGE I)! way of spreading Christmas j3 cheer, the. theatrical powers have restored Baltimore to the rank of feitics that may boast the presence of three playhouses devoted to the per formance of the spoken drama. Furthermore, the holiday bookings pro vide three of the strongest cards pre scnted here simultaneously for many luuull. Tomorrow evening the Maryland Theater having forsaken the realms of van levillc will make its full- Hedged legitimate bow by ringing up its curtain on Yours Truly, a musical comedy success of Broudway last sea son, with Leon Errol, the Ziegfeld comedian, as its star. The Maryland has now become the local stop for all attractions booked here through the Shubert office.

HE WHO GETS SLAPPED. Meanwhile the Auditorium, which until last week played the Shubert bookings, now becomes the home of Edwin H. Knopfs repertory ra- pan.v. which be has brought back to Baltimore on the strength of his sig ual success last summer. Mr.

Knopf this week will present a revival of He Who Gets Slapped, a drama from the Russian of Leonid Andreyev. HIDDEN AT FORD'S. To Ford's Theater comes David Belnsco's latest Broadway dramatic success, Hidden, a play by William Hurlbut, bringing its New York cast intact. Heading the company aye Beth Merrill and l'hilip Mcrivale. Others prominent are Mary Morris, Marjorie fiatesou and Mary Wall.

From a his trionic standpoint the presentation Is hailed as one of the events of the season. Hidden is described as a comedy- drama. It is an intimate story of modern American home life. It is built around a triangle composed of a husband, a wife and a sister-in-law, and it is the hidden emotions of the sister-in-law (played by Miss Merrill) that form the basis of the dramatic struggle. The serious side of the drama is said to be tempered with strong comedy side lines.

BELASCO Miss Merrill is the latest protegee of Mr. Belasco to be elevated to stardom. This will mark her third appearance here under Mr. Briasco's direction, and thus Baltimoreaus will have been afforded an opportunity of seeing her in all her Belasco roles since the veteran impresario engaged here three seasons ago. Her work here in both Ladies of the Evening and Lily Sue was generally acclaimed.

Mr. Merivale, also known well' hpro. comes fresh from new triumphs on uroauway, for lie left The Rnnrl tn Rome (in which he played the role of uanniDal) to perform in Hidden. WAHEATEH GUILD SUCCESS. He Who Gets Skinned fipsf- wn Sn.

troduced to local playgoers by the touring, repertorv comnnnv nf ih Mow York Theater Guild three or four sea sons ago. The Andrevev drnma one of the Guild's earliest successes and when first presented it provoked no ntue discussion. The play recounts th ward story of a disillusioned man who seeus surcease from his marital dis appointment in the chalk ami nf loons of a circus clown. Aside from this narrative and surface character ization, tnere is an underlvW "vt. a symbolic and psychic "He," that is so inaetinite that each individual spectator may interpret him as he sees fit.

RUSSIA SYMBOLISM. Andreyev was a Russinrt He died in revolution-torn Russia wmie the controversy over his work was still newly kindled. He lived long enough to declare that his play presents a conflict between paganism ana Christianity that poisoned love and that it is a play in fairy-tale form telling the story of beautiful tured by earthly violence, who have lost tneir way in the labyrinth of petty uuinau aitairs ana painful nassinns. Mr. Knopf brings three newcomers to Head his cast.

Josa Ruhon French actor who has aDDeared hen. previously, plays the role of He, while Jrene Ulaire will appear as. Consuelo. the circus rider, and Fadia Marinoff will play the lion tamer. Among the laminar laces in the company will be Robert Rendel.

Doris Rankin. Gil bert Douglas, Harlan Briggs, Walter ucer and Aancv ISaker. Others in eluded are Manart Kippen, Harry Dimmer. Robert Monteomprv. FAii ardo Sunchez and Donald McGinnis.

SUPPORTING ERROL. Youn Truly an elaborate musical show, carrying a large chorus and company personnel of about one bun dred. It represents Gene Buck's Erst venture as an independent producer after seventeen years of association with Florenz Ziegfeld in the creation of the Follies annuals. Xeedless to say, Mr. Errol is pro-Tided with frequent opportunities for the display of his comedy legs and nn-J believable clothes, wandering on anfl off the scenes at unexpected momentSL The supporting company includes Gertrude Lanz, Tom Waters.

Irving Fisher, Vera Myers, Theodore Bab- cock, Forrest Yarnall, Elizabeth Du-rav. Tic Casmore, Lot! a Fanning, David Herblui, John Van play of Danton, Robespierre and the French Revolution across the great stage of the Century and achieved a spectacular sight of impassioned mobs, waving bands and skillfully manipu lated lights. This being' the first of the so-called modernistic plays at least, it was the first staged in this fashion it holds vast interest for the more serious students of the theater. But it is of the Irish Players we Bhall speak, perhaps because they opened on Monday night and there is more time to set a record of their second triutaph here. HOMELY PLAYERS, They are homely, earthy players, these Irish people.

Their plays are homely, too, but especially in the two written by O'Casey, there runs the vivid pulse ol a heartsick, rowdy, sen timental, careless nation. O'Casey, a product, they Bay, of the Dublin slums, writes as, sincerely and fls passionately as anyone now working for the stage He has a message to deliver and he delivers it. He is biased and fervid, but his plain sincerity makes he com mon faults seem Use virtues, ana wnen his last acts roll around and his actors cry to Heaven, they cry with loud voices, magnified, perhaps, by immi nently bursting heflrtB, Thus it is, the beset Juno Boyle of Juno and the Paycock comes to a last act filled with troubles great er than those which beset Job, that she beseeches Saviour to substitute the. hearts of stone which are in men with hearts of And you cry as she shouts this; tears which 'are un ashamed and sympathetic. STORY OF POOR IRISH.

The story of Juno and the Paycock is. the story of a poor Irish family, held together by Juno, wife of Jack Boyle and mother to a son and daugh ter. The father, Jack, is a loafer, a no-good, blustering fellow, given to toud 'talk, rheumatic pains and lazi ness. The daughter is a decent, sincere girl, who falls when a smooth-talking lawyer comes her way; the- son is a Die Hard, a scoundrel who betrayed one of hi? own kind and who was taken out and snot. To this family comes news of a leg acy and straightway they buy furni ture oft credit while the father eoes amonghis neighbors and borrows many sums, all on the strength of the legacy.

But the legacy is not paid and the lawyer who promised it betrays the daughter. With this crush of ill luck the son Is taken from his family and killed, while the no-good father goes to a pub with his crony. Joxer, and imbibes liquors high in al coholic content. Therefore, as the crisis rises, one sees the strong Juno Boyle standing by daughter while father and son condemn her and, when the home is finally wrecked, in come Jack and Joxer too drunk to It is a heart-breaking finale to the recital of a family story. (RACY WRITING.

AH of this is punctuated time and again with O'Casey's racy style of writing. Into moments of great dramatic portent he injects streaking flashes of comedy. He achieved im portant effects before you know it. Just to indicate, for instance, that the neighborhood began to distrust rumors of a Boyle fortune and that tradesmen were beginning to worry about ever being paid, he has a -tailor come in to of the leading woman she went to New York with little or no results until she was engaged for Parlor, Bedroom and Bath. Some time later she went back to Chicago to play the lead in The Wonderful Thing, and then she switched to Albany in stock.

Last year she created the title role in Lily Sue, following the closing of the Ladies of the Evening production. PHILIP MERIVALE. Philip Merivale, who has the masculine lead in Hidden, is an Englishman of wide expedience, known chiefly for his work in Call the Doctor and The Merchant of Venice. He was with the famous Frank Benson Company and then joined Fred Terry and Julia Neilson, appearing with them in Henry of Navarre and The Scarlet Pimpernel, with which' they came to America. When the company went back to England MeVivale went along, playing another round of the classics.

His second expedition to this country was with Mrs. Patrick Campbell, an expedition which resulted permanently. Since then he has appeared with Lauretta Taylor, served during the World War with the Canadian Air Force and returned to the footlights with George Arliss. Opus Bears Earmarks Of Late Charles Klein In Critic. By ALEXANDER Special Correspondence.

New York. N' OW, one by one, come the plays of the cities. The map of the American scene has undergone incalculable changes in the years since the late Frank Norris wrote: "Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say1, or Nashville, Tenn. There are just three big cities in the United States that are 'story cities' New York, of course. New Orleans and, best of the lot, San Francisco." Well, all right, quoth O.

Henry, let us say Nashville, and forthwith turned out the story which the men of his own craft, whenever they are polled, name as the finest thing he ever wrote. I suppose it is probable that in one medium or another the character of Jack Boyle and gives it a recreation which must delight its author. Sinclair makes this loafer a reul loafer, a pleasant enough fellow until his mean, narrow, petty ways assert themselves near, the conclusion, where he pours forth vituperation upon his errant daughter that sort of bitter, unreasoning vituperation which can come only from bigoted, ignorant and sinful people. But always the actor has a firm irrin on his character. portrait which Sincfair draws deserves to rank among the masterpieces of the'staze: It i shrewd and observing, it is humorous ana pathetic i It is caricature and photostat, all at the same As the Juno, Sara Allgood is none the less perfect.

She is the slattern an Irish wife, the factor which holds the family together. Fiery upon occasion and yet always dominant because she is the breadwinner, Miss Allgood plays the part with tremendous vital- ity and a sure regard for the points which the author wanted to project. iasey is the passionate sort of a writer who cannot and does not deal in satire. He has something to say and he says it as his people micht sav U. Thus he attains a theatrical homeli-, ness which passes entirely out of the theater and ceases to be theatrical, be- coming instead the loud and deep wail of a writer who is sorry for his people and who knows of no better way to make the world understand tham than to set them down with an accuracy which is alternately cruel and tender, but always understanding.

LIKELY TO TOCR. It is likely that the Irish Players will tour. If they do aud come to Baltimore. be advised now that they will bring something no other theatrical company can bring a gift of folkacting of vast ability to project the plays of a sin cere writer with a message, unimpor tant to us, perhaps, but ever so important to him and to his people! And, as an item aside from all this, the Arthur Sinclair of the company is a comedian of rare texture. From all this you may gather that your correspondent has been greatly impressed by the Irish Players and i their plays.

That is precisely the case. In Christmas Week Attractions out how naughty they have been. There was something reminiscent Monday night of the laughter where with The Show Shop shook this same Hudson Theater a dozen years ago in the moment when one of these spuri ous aunts clasped her ands in despair and cried out to her protegee, "My God, don't tell me you've gone and fallen in love with a comic!" And the other niece quite brought down the house when, in her efforts to reminisce plausibly about her girlhood jn the convent, she confided to all within ear shot how dreadfully she had been treated there by the monks. But such eruptions have a kind of splendid isolation in the glum business which makes up the greater part of the Marcin-Stewart opus. The mere on looker is never, in a position to detect lie individual contributions in a col laboration, but he is free to do a little guessing, and after a good deal of guessing at Los Angeles, I venture to express the hope that if ever Mr.

Stewart recovers- sufficiently to at tempt another play he will do jt alone and listen to no one who to him, "You can't do that sort of thing in the theater." Now before the avalanche of plays is rushed into town to catch the pen nies of the holiday visitors, there is just time for me to report on certain troupes from far countries which have set up their booths. A group of players from the Argentine spent a cheerless fortnight at the Manhattan Opera House despite the fact that their opening bill was enticingly announced as follows: "The scene is laid in a Buenos Aires cabaret, in the slums, and we are per mitted to see the Tango as it was at the beginning sensual, aphrodisiac, more than a little hysterical but containing all of those elements of grace and allurement which have won for it the admiration of a fox-trotting world' liven so tne patronage was scant. GERMAN PLAYERS SCORE. Up at another abandoned opera house the Century the German players have done a more thriving trade, and on Tuesday night Professor Rein- hardt gave the largest production in his kit, the multitudinous pageant of the French Revolution called The Death of Danton. It serves notice on the Ameri can schoolboy, who has been compelled to plod through such dramatists as Goe the and Schiller, that the new men of the German theater think neither of those two ever wrote anything for his native stage comparable with the two plays of which The Death of Danton is one left behind by a youngster named Ton Buerhner, who killed him self in exile when he was only 24.

It was as long age as 1S3? that this young revolutionist died In Zurich, but it was not until sixty years later that the German theater made Its first use of his two unhenored plays. Indeed, it has bequ discovered only in aur own time that ail which had hampered Von Buechner as a plajwright was that he wrote about a century ahead of his Having Been Written By Fit Of Depression' Says WOOLLCOTT. tale he wrote called The Retrieved Reformation found the widest audi ence, and, for my own part, I think he never quite achieved again the magic that was, in the little piece called The Skylight Room. But when ever a vote is taken the other short story writers always 'cast theirs for the one about Nashville called A Municipal Report. "Fancy a novel about Chicago," said Mr.

Norris, and Edna Ferber replied with The Girls, that beautiful book compared with which the tar more popular So Big and Show Boat scarce ly deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. Then Maurine Watkins replied with Chicago, the sharp and stinging play about a blonde-On trial for doing a bit of murder. LOS ANGELES And now, as a reminder that an other "story city" has grdwn legendary since the days when Norris scanned the map, we have the play called Los Angeles, which the feverishly active George M. Cohan was not above bringing to the Hudson Theater on Monday night of this week. The blame for this feeble and com plicated comedy is equally apportioned by the program between so practiced an old-timer as Max Marcin and so innocent i.

newcomer in the theater as Donald Ogden Stewart. These etrange-ly assorted collaborators started out with a good idea. Both of them know their Hollywood backward (which is, I understand, the best way to know it), and at least one of them was superbly equipped to contribute the de risive picture of Hollywood that still aches to be written. But in the play as it was pretty shoddily performed on Monday at the Hudson there remain only the faintest traces of whatever Intention there may once have been to poke a little fun at Hollywood. Indeed.

Los Angeles has all the earmarks of having been writ ten in a moment of depression by the late Charles Klein, and not more than a dozen speeches in the whole five acts suggest that they could possibly hare been written by the same man who conceived such lovely lunacy as Mr. and Mrs. Haddock Abroad. WHERE COMEDY EXTERS. Some little fun, to be sure, is derived from the two battered duennas who descend on Hollywood, each in charge of a fair young creature who is introduced as a niece fresh from a convent.

By using these bogus niecen as decoys the old harpies rather bone to levy a little blackmail on the stars and magnates, who live in perpetual tr VM ti II lis At Local Playhouses This Week Maryland Yours Truly, musical comedy starring Leon Errol. Ford's Hidden, Belasco production with Beth Merrilf heading cast. Auditorium He Who Gets Slapped, Knopf Auditorium Guild production. VAUDEVILLE New Garden Wagner Freaks, headliners. Hippodrome Cuckoo, sketch, headlining.

LITTLE THEATERS Guild The Mikado. Fourth veA. of Play-Arts Guild revival 'of Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera. BURLESQUE Palace Tommy (Bozo) Snyder's own show. 'Gayetjy Record Breakers.

IRENE BLAINE BETH MERRILL Miss Merrill is the Etar of Hidden at Ford's this week. Miss Elaine plays Consuelo in He Who Gets Slapped at the Auditorium. ICowriiM. 1927.1.