The Blue Mouse

Blue Mouse, The (1908), a comedy by Clyde Fitch. [Lyric Theatre, 232 perf.] Knowing that his boss Mr. Lewellyn (Harry Conor), the president of the railroad, is an inveterate skirt‐chaser, Augustus Rollett (Jameson Lee Finney) persuades a popular cabaret star, Paulette Divine (Mabel Barrison), who is known as “The Blue Mouse,” to pretend to be his wife and let his boss have a brief flirtation with her. Augustus banks on this leading to a promotion. What he does not bank on are appearances by Mrs. Lewellyn (Zelda Sears), his own wife (Jane Laurel), and several other friends and relatives, all of whom arrive at inconvenient moments and misconstrue the situation. Fitch freely adapted and Americanized a German play by Alexander Engel and Julius Horst. The comedy was later the source of the 1919 musical The Little Blue Devil.