Frawley? did not abides by his It was, perhaps, a pity that Mr.
original intention of opening his season in Shanghai with 'Smilin' Through." For "The Gold Di gers'? gave one no real opportunity of judging the merits of the company. Even admitting that it is deliberately intended as caricature, and that neither American chorus girls nor their swains behave 'n veal life as represented at the Olympic on Thursday. "The Gold Diggers" struck one as poor stuff. American farce is not, or used not to be, deficient in imbroglio. But the plot of this piece is meagre and there ig a conspicuous lack of incident. Moreover, the notion that a man, imbued with an almost Puritanical abhorrence of chorus girls. can, in one short week, be so wholly vanquished by the charms of one of them, especially one who has deliberately laid herself out to confirm all his worst opinions of her profession, as to lay his heart at her feet and discover that all chorus girls are angels, would be straining the bounds of permissible probability even if the play were a musical comedy. There are some clever lines which raised laughter but these: were interspersed with arid stretches of talk which called sadly for the blue pencil and the applause at the curtains was more polite than enthusiastic. The company worked exceedingly hard and played with great vivacity. But the piece refused to be enlivened. Miss Adele Blood seemed to be unsuited in the part of "Jerry Lunar." From what one saw one imagined that such parts, say, as the heroine of "The Witness for the Defenca' or "His House in Order," would show one her real quality. Miss Barnicoat was successful as Mabel, playing it as the broadest farce and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.