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Type:
Dialogue.
"The Memory Book."
"The Memory Book," which Frances Nordstrom conceived for the stage, presented by Miss Nordstrom, William Pinkham and two children, Wm. Read, Jr., and Hazel Read, makes a sentimental appeal through turning back the pages of yesteryear and showing how the old lady with the old fashioned dress, faded shawl, visualizes her youth and married days by a change to a scene of the period intended. The memory book is the old family album. It revives fresh memories of the days when the likenesses were in the flesh and by scenic arrangement a pictorial conception of the memory is picturesquely presented. The setting is in the form of an album, with the figures showing animation back of the page line. To bring out the album outlines the space on the stage is necessarily cut down, this reduction making it difficult for the occupants of the box seats on either side to obtain a full view of the stage figures and focusing the main ensemble in the direct centre. The act opens with Miss Nordstrom as the grayhaired woman alone, seated in the old-fashioned sitting room of her home poring over the album; commenting as to what each picture means to her, with a closing of the curtained folds and a scenic change made for the impression in mind. After each transition the cutback to the album soliloquy. The first transformation shows Molly (the old lady) as an eight-year old j:hick meeting Joe, aged 10. The boy and girl use some dialogue of 50 years or so ago. It's an outdoor setting, with blossoms, trees abloom et cetera, the background being in the main effective. The next periodical shift of the book has Joe and Molly married and in the bedroom of the home discussing the newly born
babe. The following one is of Joe, old and bent, with an arm gone as the result of the Civil War, and Molly, playing checkers. For the finale the old lady is shown at the album lamenting
the absence of her loved ones, but realizing that she, too, must soon become a memory. The characters speak their lines in rhyme, Miss Nordstrom having the lion's share. Miss Nordstrom handles her lines effectively. Mr. Pinkham takes care of his plotted work while the kids pass muster, although the boy seemed to be affected with a cold. The picturized scenic investiture meets all requirements.
Source:
Variety, 54:4 (03/21/1919)