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Character songs and singing.
A lot of 'em have been getting away with plenty while Irene Franklin was over there. Now she has come back— and how she has come back! She's the lady O. Henry of vaudeville songsters, and possesses above all her other talents the faculty of being natural. When she's a youngster, she's a youngster, not a simpering ingenue in kiddish make-up. When she's a washwoman, she's a washwoman, not a washlady, nor yet a washperson. And when she's a chorus lady, she is THE chorus lady. Woe to the "seconds" who have been doing character types in song. Irene Franklin has come back. Miss Franklin offers the best act she has ever shown. Wise-cracking prophets had said that she was due for an artistic fall because of an overabundance of conceit which bad begun to dull the line edge of her artistry, before she went overseas as an entertainer for the soldiers. Her experiences over there seem to have taken all that away from her. She is much more restrained, there is infinitely more character in her work and in her technique.
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Variety, 54:11 (05/09/1919)