Paris in 1890 is the subject of Cornelia Otis Skinner's latest work, and last night at the Shubert she glorified that city in thirteen episodes before an enthralled first-night audience.

It was a Paris of leisurely women, of working women, of prostitutes and entertainers, of enchanted tourists and persecuted residents, and Miss Skinner portrayed them all in her triumphant solo performance. Running the gauntlet from a Boston school teacher to the famous songstress, Yvette Gilbert, she changed character and costume flawlessly, capturing the magic of that diversified lot with effortless grace.

The program was divided into three sections. The first, a group of women seen by a nurse on the Champs Elysees, was weaker than the others. It seemed to me that three of the sketches included in this area, the nurse, a fashionable Parisienne, and a lavishly costumed fille de joie, lacked the authenticity of the latter portraits. In these parts Miss Skinner never quite came alive and the humor of their roles was not enough compensation for this lack of real feeling.

The second section, which included a laundress, the school teacher, "A Woman of Virtue," and a Jewess who discussed the Dreyfus affair, was generally better. Especially outstanding was Miss Skinner's teacher, a rare combination of humor and pathos which was carried off with great skill and understanding.

It was the third act which I considered the high-point of the evening. Here the authoress did her impressions of four characters immortalized in the posters of Toulouse Lautree, "La Goulue," "A Lion Tamer," "Deaf Bertha," and the magnificent Yvette Gilbert. While these impressions lacked the humorous twists of the earlier ones, they seemed to be fuller, more human. The women here were dressed exactly as they appear in the famous posters, and it would be difficult if not impossible for the uninformed observer to tell that they were being played by the same person.

For a word, I would say that Miss Skinner was captivating.