The Theatre: Best Plays: Sorceress Meller

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The Bells. In this season of recurrent revivals, almost any student of the older theatre could have foretold that this veteran success of Henry Irving's would be dragged out and done again. This same student might also have foretold the futility of the attempt. The Bells is an old melodrama of Alsace, in which the Burgomaster had murdered a wandering seed merchant 15 years before. Any doubt in this matter is completely cleared up when the Burgomaster stops the second act for about five minutes to reconstruct the crime in soliloquy. Rollo Lloyd played the part and did well in the face of its ancient and insurmountable difficulties.

Love in a Mist. High comedy is nebulous stuff and demands much of the playwrights and performers. It received everything from the latter in this production and virtually nothing from the former. It reveals a girl who simply could not tell the truth and who got herself, a southern youth, and an Italian nobleman into no end of difficulty through this inability. Madge Kennedy, Sidney Blackmer (giving his best performance in several seasons) and Tom Powers are occupied as these three. Even so, the manuscript is wandering and almost mirthless.

Cherry Pie. A pocket-sized revue was put on at the pocket-sized Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village and proved dull. It was one of the various little musical shows which spring up as summer approaches, in the hope of emulating the success of the Grand Street Follies and the Garrick Gaieties. One or two of the players, all unblessed by previous prominence, were markedly adept; one or two of the sketches were smart.