Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/240

ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN response, even in the Lambs Theater where, with sympathetic and play-wise audiences, good work always is handsomely rewarded.

Another performance that sticks in my memory was that of Byron Ongley's "The Model" in the Gambol of April 10, 1910. The action took place in the Paris studio of a young English artist. The young man's mother visits him in an effort to dissuade him from his Latin Quarter life. He smiles at her solicitude and sends her away affectionately. I do not remember the name of the young actor who played the gray-haired mother, but he gave a performance of which Mrs. Thomas Whiffen need not have been ashamed. The artist is painting a Biblical scene, and unable to find among the professional models a face that suggests the spiritual demands of the Christ, he sends his servant out to scour the streets. The servant is long on the quest, but returns at last with a splendid young peasant with a natural blond beard. The artist instructs the servant to show the peasant into another room and make him up for the subject. Meanwhile a half-drunken crowd of fellow artists, students and models have gathered in the studio. The party verges on an orgy and an old libertine, approaching senility, shakes his head