CRIMSON PLAYGOER

The death of Frank Bacon last Sunday closed a career that was notable in an era of stage notabilities. Surely no man since Jefferson in "Rip Van Winkel" has been seen by so many people in a single part, and no part has held a place of warmer affection than that of Lightnin' Bill Jones. "Lightnin'", along with "The Bat", will be a by-word for theatrical success long after both plays are discarded. The fact that the play itself was hardly worth the candle of Bacon's personality makes his achievement all the more interesting.

A Russian fad, like the Oriental fad of a few years earlier, is sweeping our circles of art. It seems to have been opened by the amazingly popular "Chauve-Souris", which has already run into three editions; and it is to be carried on by an event far more notable artistically, the visit of the Moscow Art Theatre to New York in January. Boston has just felt the effects in the arrival of "He Who Gets Slapped". The Dramatic Club here, in selecting Andreyev's "The Life of Man", has acted with foresight. Even if it had no other ballast, it ought to sail smoothly to success on the rising tide of Russianism.

Yet not all the worth-while importations are Russian. From Paris to Boston next week, via New York, comes Cecile Corel. Comedienne in double sense, who declared last year that she would never come to America unless she could have champagne to bathe in, and followed with the enigmatic remark, on reaching New York, that America's air was like champagne. New York has found time to lavish praise upon her: the Boston repertoire, at the Opera House next week, is given elsewhere on this page.