(2 of 3)
The Infinite Shoeblack. Will the whole Finance Ministers and Upholsterers and Confectioners of modern Europe undertake in joint-stock company, to make one Shoeblack happy? They cannot accomplish it, above an hour or two; for the Shoeblack also has a soul quite other than his stomach.—Sartor Resartus.
This profound thesis is considerably diluted in a new drama by Britisher Norman MacOwan which substitutes sentimentalism and pasteboard glamor for the more rugged emphasis of the late great Thomas Carlyle. Actor Leslie Banks is introduced as a penniless Scotsman, living morally and thriftily in the garret of a bordello and studying to be an insurance actuary. Actress Helen Menken is a wan creature who faints on his doorstep. He befriends her to the extent of a bed, a portion of his gruel and the services of a doctor. The backslid daughter of a scholar, she can quote reams of the pious Carlyle, but she compares her own way of life to that of Aspasia, most successful of the Athenian courtesans. The Scotsman talks of her soul; he signs another man's name on his own examination paper in order to get money to provide her with a rest-cure in Spain.
He next encounters her in Cairo during the War; he has lost an arm in His Majesty's service and she is the luxurious mistress of a General. When she invites him to a tete-a-tete dinner against an archway filled with the radiant Egyptian sky, he spoils the event by broaching matters of the spirit again. "You women," he declares, "promise everything and give nothing—you promise everything; the sun, the stars and the tops of green hills." So affected is she by a vast amount of this sort of phraseology that she returns to Edinburgh as his dutiful wife, bears him a child, and dies as a consequence. Her death only serves to accentuate the happiness of the couple—to demonstrate that Carlyle was right.
Playwright MacOwan's somewhat misapplied earnestness is ably abetted by Actor Banks, whose moral austerity and quirks of personality convincingly reek of heather. Actress Menken's husky voice has always been effective when sober things were being spoken; she still achieves miracles of makeup which make her seem almost beautiful. One of the season's most extraordinary moments occurs when, as a barefoot invalid, she extends her foot toward the audience and spreads and wiggles her toes with astounding flexibility.
Apron Strings. Pansy Pomeroy, lady columnist, died leaving her son a multitude of letters telling him how to conduct his life. The effect of this legacy becomes apparent when he takes a bride. So completely impersonal is he toward her that it begins to seem as if he had never been apprised of a husband's obligations. There is a quarrel, but several shots of Scotch suffice to break the mother-fixation and the play ends with enlightenment in the offing. There is a great deal to be said for the humorous treatment of modern psychology. But here the humor is not half so subtle as the pathological dilemma used as its basis. Jefferson de Angelis is amusing as the lawyer who realizes that liquor has always been an aid to the bashful.