THE CRIMSON PLAYGOER

It may be remembered that some years ago Marjorie Rambeau met with her first great success in that violent melodrama, "The Eyes of Youth". Having at last seen the play without her charming presence, we wonder how she ever managed to do it. The task mush have been a great one.

Since O. Henry's "Roads of Destiny" and long before, people have been obsessed with the desire to look into the future. To see where the paths of life would lead them, before they made their final choice. The authors of "The Eyes of Youth" have engendered this one idea (and practically no other) into their play.

The Crystal Globe Shows The Future

They show us a girl who must decide between staying at home, seeking an operatic career in Paris, and marrying either for money or love. By the aid of that dear old piece of hokum--a crystal globe--they take their heroine through ten breath-taking scenes and several compromising situations to show her the probable results of her different choices. Towards the end, they evidently run out of scenery and words, for they fail to photograph her after she has married the hero. We think this might have been the worst solution of all, although the playwrights, not sharing our apprehensions, throw her blindly into his arms.

Not content with overworking this time-worn device, the authors go on to pack their scenes with soul-tearing and ear-splitting melodrama which at times verges on farce. Indeed it seemed to us that this play should not have been chosen, especially for the limited scope of a stock company.

Cigarettes And a Champagne Bottle

As Gina Ashley, the wavering hero-one, Ann Mason carries on with a part that it unsuited to her gentle and kindly temperament. In one very lurid scene she goes completely to the bad--lights real cigarettes, drinks from an empty champagne bottle, and comes out with one awfully naughty exclamation which we almost blushed at. But somehow we knew all the time that she was just the same gentle Miss Mason who was "in love with love" last week, and that she doesn't usually say such things.

Fine Acting By Mark Kent

Mark Kent as Poalo Salvo, the manager of great opera singers, does a remarkably fine piece of work. This usually reserved and dignified old man becomes a flowery and flery foreigner who throws kisses, gesticulates wildly, and never once steps out of his part.

Houston Richards is east as Gina's younger brother but just what his status is it is hard to determine. Dressed in tuxedo and looking fully as old as Gina, he leaves the room with a strap-load of books. Towards the end of the evening, he returns still in the tuxedo--throws the books down and remarks that he's darned glad that's over. We should think he would be, but was it a masquerade bail or a night class?