Word: playgoer
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Heralded by this pat and pleasant show-title, Miss Ann Pennington once more recommends herself to a Harvard following. If spontaneity is one's criterion, as it is the Playgoer's, she is the whole show. The years have not taken away the sparkle of that diminutive dancing figure. She still can hold the attention against all the cast around her. One scene in particular comes to mind, where Miss Pennington, elevated above the other figures of the ensemble, is revealed by the rising curtain in a dimly-lighted setting of red, black, and purple. Slow music, with the drums...
Miss Pennington's spontaneity does not extend to the plot, which seems to an admittedly intolerant Playgoer just another refurbishing of ideas that were old even before "Jack O'Lantern" came to town. Such matter as the old pun about coffe-grounds, or the mix-up taken from O'Henry's "Gifts of the Magi," or the business of loading teacups with sugar-lumps as a sign of abstraction--all these held no charm for the Playgoer, while the very smoothness and finish of the performance depressed him. For as he watched Mr. Shaw's infinitely competent capering, he hoped...
...Brook, to conduct his extra-martial affair with Miss Juliette Compton, knowing that he'll come home just as surely as Little Bo-Peep. There is little for the erring husband to choose between the two women, and Mr, Brook takes no great pleasure in either. Neither does the Playgoer. Best scene: Mr. Brook playing with the children's toy tracks...
...subjecting this plot to a merciless synopsis, the Playgoer admits that he has exaggerated the element of horror. This element is sufficiently diluted in the actual showing to make more prominent other merits, such as the careful settings, imaginatively done, and the capable photography and camera-angles. There is a consistent tone to the piece, a tone that was lacking in "Frankenstein," with its weakening comedy interludes. The extravagance and absurdity of the plot is somehow reconciled by the opening scene sin the mountebank's tent, which set the key for shivery theatricality. Mirakle, showman that he is, can heap...
...making before him. Merging as it does into symbolism, the story can hardly be more closely described without making it seem either recondite or sentimental. Just as there is no verbal transcription for a symphony, so there is no literary parallel for this cenematic symphony. The playgoer might single out the banquet scene, where brilliant montage conveys the sense of hollowness and hypocrasy: or he might mention the marvellous hospital sequence, where the activity of the doctors is punctuated by recurring close-ups of the nurses' eyes, competent, steadily watching. But these citations do no justice to the total effect...