It is long since the playgoers and first-nighters of Brooklyn had such a treat as was tendered them last season by the re-appearance of that bright star in the dramatic constellation, James J. Corbett. Mr. Corbett came back to us with his new drama, "Pals," an admirable vehicle for the display of his singular dramatic talents.
The fact that it was the Lenten season marred somewhat the attendance, otherwise the society folk of Brooklyn might have made it a brilliant function. Yet Mr. Corbett's welcome lacked nothing of warmth or appreciation.
Sacrificed Ring to the Drama.
Since the time when, in "The Naval Cadet," Mr. Corbett took the American Theater by storm, his art has broadened and deepened. It is an older, a more mature, dare it be said a shiftier, Corbett who returns to us. So often of late has the assertion been made that Mr. Corbett is the best actor in the pugilist division of the stage that it is time for a comparison between his art and that of those other eminent gentlemen who have left the ring for the everlasting good of the drama, Messrs. John Lawrence Sullivan, Terence McGovern, James E. Britt, and J. John Jeffries.
It is true that any comparison between the art of these five eminent artists must be superficial, and to a certain extent banal, owing to the diversity of the dramas by which they have seen fit to show forth their talents.
The stanch art, honest and straightforward as a right swing, of "Honest Hearts and Willing Hands," is not to be compared to the romantic yet often superficial "Bowery After Dark," which Mr. Terence McGovern has so ably interpreted, and neither can be compared exactly with the jarring right-cross force of Mr. Jeffries's "Davy Crockett."
As those who observe Mr. Corbett practising his now abandoned profession of pugilism have remarked, he is characteristically lacking in repose of manner. In this, he is distinctly inferior to Mr. J. Lawrence Sullivan. John L.—on the stage—was all repose. Alas for that word was! How those lines, so simply yet so earnestly spoken, ring yet in the ears of old playgoers:
"To hell with the man that strikes a woman!" [Biff!]
In the more delicate and lightsome passages, Corbett's admirers declare he shines supreme; yet, after all, is he as funny as Terry McGovern? Take his delivery of these lines when he is rebuked by the sub-heroine for using too much slang:
"Oh, I'm onto the slang all right, and I'm going to cut it out!"