On the occasion of his coming appearance here Roland Reed will present for the first time in Wheeling “The Club Friend.” The play runs along smoothly, swiftly and interestingly, and there is a great deal in the matter that must please the intelligent listener apart from the interest in the characters or story. Incidentally the play is a satire upon that by no means modern ally of that inky gentleman who finds mischief for idlers, the fashionable physician.
The story of “The Club Friend,” however, is mainly concerned with the fortunes of Mr. Stuyvesant Filbert, a man who, having a reputation for levity, is never taken seriously, even when he is most in earnest.
The play gives Mr. Reed an opportunity to mount a higher artistic level than those upon which he has sported in the last half dozen years, and this admirable, intelligent and well-schooled comedian proves his fitness for the higher sphere by a clean cut, consistent and humorous characterization of a genteel comedy part.
Mr. Reed has the assistance of the same company that aided him during his long run in New York at the Star theatre. It includes Miss Isadora Rush, Miss Edna Wallace, Miss Cecile James, Mrs. Mary Myers, George Frederick Nast, Charles A. Smily, Albert Roberts, William Davide, Julian Reed and James Douglass.
The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer May 19, 1892.