Man or Devil

Man or Devil. Lionel Barrymore's appearance in any show is a signal for a certain quantity of thanksgiving. With his three shows this year--The Piker, Taps, and Man or Devi]--the quantity has, it is true, been decreasing. The first were failures and the last will scarcely do on these hot evenings. Yet it is the best of the lot. Jerome K. Jerome, the playwright, had the quaint idea of shifting, through a convenient necromancy, the soul of a young sailor into the shuffling old body of a miser. The sailor got the stinginess in the transaction and immediately they traded girls. For an act, it looked as if the veteran would marry the fragile heroine and the marine youth a wizened deaf old dame with 300,000 guilders. This difficulty called for more necromancy and repentance on the part of the greedy ancient. Mr. Barrymore impersonated this old villain and gave a competent and generally commendable interpretation. But, like the whole diversion, he seemed to lack the humor and the horror of reality.