... . THE CBIMSON ALIBI- In the beginning somebody in the dark crept round and put a silver paper knife into somebody, who squealed and died. That squeal, groan, or other ejaculation entitled the gentleman who emitted it to a place among the dramatis personce in the order of their appearance, though I imagine that if there had been any dispute about it, it could have been put against him with ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. JOLLY JACK TAR, AT THE PRINCE'S THEATRE. SWEET are the uses of advertisement, and Jolly Jack Tar has been so well advertised that we have seen it coming for months past. The hope of it cheered us during the darkest hours of the war, and its imminence doubt less caused those public jollifications on November 11th which were wrongly credited to the Armistice. We gathered ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS, AT THE HAYMARKET THEATRE. WHATEVER differences of opinion there may be as to the merits of The Freedom of the Seas as a play, opinion will be unanimous, ex cept on the part of out-of-work actors, that it is excellently performed. No one cares much whether the leading actor is on the stage or not when everyone else, from bosun to skipper, from ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. TO-NIGHT'S THE NIGHT, AT THE GAIETY THEATRE. SHOULD the illustrations on this page strike the reader as having more of the audience than of the actors in them, our artist's apology must be that from the seat he adorned he was favoured with a perfect view of the box occu pants, but with a more limited vision of the stage. This modesty of actors in hiding from one admirer ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. PUSS IN BOOTS, AT DRURY LANE THEATRE. BEFORE you have been long at the Drury Lane pantomime you feel with even more certainty than when you entered the building that we are going to win this war. It would be difficult to say how the impres sion is caused, for practically no reference is made on the stage to the big subject. Is it the cheerful optimism of the part-author, ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. THE SECOND MRS. TANQUERAY, AT THE ST. JAMES'S THEATRE. IT is twenty years since The Second Mrs. Tanqueray was produced at the St. James's Theatre, which many people at the moment thought was a hold, bad thing to be done. There were some who went so far as to bracket Pinero with Ibsen, who about then was a very much abused old gentleman, with but a few friends in this ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. THE SAVING GRACE, AT THE GARRICK THEATRE. IT used to be a custom to refer to the works of Mr. Hubert Henry Davies as tenuous, but fragrant and delightful, and to say that no author was ever better served than he by his actors. Exactly the same might be said of Mr. C. Haddon Chambers's comedy The Saving Grace now being performed at the Garrick Theatre. Perhaps M r. ...

... ROUND TIIE T H E A T R E S. SEALED ORDERS.-- I have a suggestion for Drury Lane which I offer in the con fident expectation that not the slightest attention will be paid to it. Why not let us all see the works? Remove the wings, throw a bright light into the flies, show us the mighty horde of worthy fellows rushing about in their shirtsleeves, pulling ropes, turning wheels, dangling on to ...

... The Empire Theatre. --A very strong company was engaged tor a new vaudeville called The Gay Lothario, by Messrs. C. H. Bovill and Frank Tours, which was produced in this Leicester-square house of entertainment last Monday. It concerns an impresario the gay one of the title a merry widow, a famous actor, some stage- struck youngsters, &c., and goes to lively music and smart dialogue ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. TWO BARRIE PLAYS AT THE DUKE OE YORK'S THEATRE. WE started with The Will, a sort of Milestones play, in which you watch the characters grow older and older until they reach an age at which, like the man whom Mark Twain kept to break in his now corncob pipes, they would be as well, or better, dead. It was very soothing to those of us who only possess a little cash, or ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. PLAYS THAT PASS IN A NIGHT-- OR TWO. IT is not always a proof of bad authorship that a play does not succeed. A great deal depends upon the weather and not a little upon the place of production. It is now the time of the year when people do not go to the theatre with enthusiasm, when even the case-hardened deadhead who never pays for a seat hands over his voucher to a ...

... ROUND T HE T H E A T R E S. PEN,-- Mr. Horace Annesley Vachell has done such good work that he probably knows as well as anybody that Pen will not do at all. If he did not discover the truth at rehearsals, the first performance can have left him in no doubt; but I hope for the sake of his reputation as an artist that enlightenment came earlier still, and that as he wrote he felt that ...