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The dramatic performance entitled “The First Law of Nature” from Miss Russell and Co. weakened the bill for the evening with its questionable content including a woman with a past, a role of hush money, and a husband who ultimately accepts responsibility for a centre-stage murder he did not commit. Don Merrifield and Geo. Kenneth do some excellent acting in support of Miss Russell who struggles in the lead role. “While the leading role is difficult to portray, Miss Russell does not in the most salient features realize more than the hysterical side of it; she lends no touch of the remorseful woman to win sympathy, but brings to the part an air of sniffling and grovelling which incites the thought that she has not heard the true call of reform…” “But if she were the greatest actress in the realm, she could not make of the work in hand anything more than a needless display of criminality the which, while perhaps reflecting true conditions, should not pass unchallenged.”
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Variety 21:6 (01/14/1911)