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Show itThe Only Way Out of It"(HE purpose of the Scribblers' Club is to develop the latent powers of its members, hoping that in the process some spark of genius may occasionally be uncovered. For an organization professing such aims the first public appearance was a singularly happy one.On February 21st the Club presented in the Assembly Hall of the University an original farce, "The Only Way Out of It," by L. L. Butler, instructor in English and founder of the Club. The play itself attempted no new departure in story or plot, being the recital of the ridiculous situations arising out of confusion of identity.Two young men named J. M. Smith and J. Montague Smith belong to the same Club. James M. Smith gets a letter stating that a long-lost Uncle Jeremiah is coming to town and will look him up. Montague receives notice that the sheriff is coming to see him, and remembering certain little obligations that remain unsatisfied hastens home to remove his personal property to some place of safety, leaving James M. to hold the sheriff at bay.Two other members of the Club, Lionel Dare and Jack Forrester, who are present when the letters are received, resolve to play a practical joke on J. Montague by sending a certain Billikin, erstwhile actor, but now coachman in the employ of Dare, to impersonate the mysterious uncle, while they watch the fun from behind a pair of screens. The sheriff, and the real and pseudo uncle, all come to the Club, all meet the wrong Smith and a comedy of errors follows. To unravel the tangle in which they become involved would occupy too much space. Sufficient to say that J. Montague ultimately receives the blessing of his much tormented uncle and that the sheriff turns out to be a denatured sheriff who is not seeking to perform the functions of his office on the goods and chattels of the unhappy debtor. The scene ends in the humiliation of the false Uncle Jeremiah, and the dragging of the conspirators from their place of concealment.The play was staged and coached by Mr. Butler, and the company was, as advertised, an "all-star cast." Whitmore as Lionel Dare, Woodbury as Jack Forrester, Ashby as J. Montague Smith and Howells as James M. Smith, were admirable men about town. Whitmore looked so blase that he was almost sinister, and Woodbury was inanity personified.As Uncle Jeremiah, Hamren had a part in which art and nature conspired to make him perfect and the appreciation of his audience was manifested most vociferously. Draper, as Billikin, was truly an awe-inspiring sight. His makeup was a fearful and wonderful thing, suggesting Mr. Hyde and Banquo's ghost and his lines were delivered in a voice that brought out goose-flesh on his hearers.Anderson, as the sheriff, had a bold, bad look, calculated to strike terror to the hearts of all law-breakers.And then there was Bates, the butler. Gibbs played this role, and while he did not have many lines, what he did say was delivered in a voice sepulchral in its solemnity and with a gravity of demeanor that would have put an undertaker to shame.If we have given the impression that the little play owed its favorable reception to eccentric roles and extravagant makeups we have done it scant justice, indeed. The lines were all very bright and very clever and the repartee of the four clubmen caused almost as much laughter as the ravings of Billikin and Uncle Jeremiah.The intricacies of the plot were worked out most skillfully and the action never lagged for an instant.At the end of the play the company rendered the Scribblers' song, also written by Mr. Butler, and the curtain was rung down on the first public performance of the Club.(136) |