Alice Pierce

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Impressionist. Miss Pierce worked us up to a high pitch of expectation which did not realize on her first appearance. In the first place, while she has undoubted talent, she is not physically strong enough to carry the big parts, which she attempts, such as Beerbohm Tree Zaza and etc. Her enunciation is not clear cut, and I purposely left the stage box, and retreated to the rear of the house to see if her voice would reach, which it utterly failed to do with any degree of clearness. The imitation of Edna May was quite impossible, for this reason that she either has no voice or else does not know how to sing, and as for its being an imitation, compared with Loftus in the same attempt, it was neither artistic or convincing. Her emotional features were the best, but left her utterly exhausted at the close, showing that the attempt was way beyond her powers, although it showed great appreciation of the role. More than that, we counted on 15 min, the last five in 1, but she did barely ten minutes, and refused to go on in 1, as she might have done, though there was scant justification in the applause. It would appear that if Miss Pierce could not win a holiday crowd any stronger than this, she is sure to have difficulties the remainder of the week, and is a very over-estimated and over-paid feature on our bill. 15 mins CDF in 3, 3 mins. Olio in 1 at night. EVENING: Miss Pierce went better to-night, adding her act (3 mins. in 1) the English idea of American coon song. It failed to win strong however, and left scarcely a hand. She must be moved up the bill.

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