Show CARLES NEW PLAY AND A GLIMPSE P I BY BV FRANKLIN FRANKLIN FYLES I AT A CONEY ISLAND ATTRACTIONS New York May Carle is this weeks asker of at attention to a show i he places in Broadway for sum Imm summer summer mer mtr hilarity He made it by nr first t shortening a French farce which long ago Augustus Thomas rewrote for Stu Stuart Stuart Stuart art and F C Burnand for Wil WI William limn liam Hawtrey and then lengthening it ItIl v Il iti verses tunes dances pranks and jokes j of or his own ownBy Py By this tUne time says S one of ot the char charat chara at a t rs to another on meeting him some years after his marriage you must have a thing so high and he holds out his hand to indicate a young child running around the house I 1 have Is the reply just about that high running around the house ail aU the th while Boy or girl Neither a hedge If you ou came camo across that in a comic column Olumn of ot a newspaper it would get no more than th ln a brief briet grin but spoken by b carle earle in the right place and way It rouses the heartiest laughter that is 15 fU n to Marys Lamb The come dan dau able to put together plays for his own effectual use is fortunate He gets the salary of the leading lending actor the roy royalty laity alty of ot the playwright pla and much of ot the profits of management The most moat con of at such very ery practical jokers George e M Cohan has one show under headway here and will start another by y midsummer Sam Bernard and Lew Fields FIld have each a frolic going as though to last through the hot weather with roles largely original with them themselves themselves selves Two Tw Edwards Julian Ju Julian lian and Gus Ous have similar entertain entertainments entertainments ments running Others to count up thirteen wilt will be J o e set going in June It Itis ItIs Itis is a of ot the showmen that dur during during ing the summer people will go to the theatre to exude the sweat of at laughers but not to drip the tears of ot weepers ft t To tell teU that Marys Lamb Is an American seizure of ot a It French farce is equivalent to saying that th t It has a hus husband husband husband band who goes skylarking away from his home and wife with a It wo ir ITan an Was ever a French farce written on another theme than conjugal infidel infidelity infidelity infidelity ity New details are many man but devia deviations deviations from the subject are s so o few that I twiddle iry wy pen five minutes In vain r to recall any positive originality Con Consequently Carles Marys Lamb Is weaker than those fooleries of ot hH his hl that were built up on American racy humor The Leander Lamb who follows Mrs Mary In mild docility for awhile Is a crushed husband personated by Carle He was born to be a funny fellow with legs reaching up to his waist line so that when he stands up he splits and sprawls limberly of his whole length and when he sits down it is on the middle of ot his back and he has learned how to turn his disqualifications disqualifications as a beauty exhibit to theat theatrical theatrical theatrical account now he has made up his head and face in one grotesque way or another but reliant on his fun tun funniness funniness that he cant help he saves an hours time and toil toll in his dressing room before each performance As Lamb onstage he looks exactly like Mr Carle offstage with no hair where it ought to grow on most of his head with no painted lines on his face and with eyeglasses straddling his nose It n may hurt the personal pride of ot a comedian to need no makeup but it saves Eaves bother Ie fC Last week I described des a new frisk of ot a play playas as free of ot rank Tenderloin flavor although its turmoil was about and around an actress and here again in Marys Lamb the rival with the husband is a stage tage l beauty Before I forget it permit me to write that the Henrietta Lee who tempts Mr Ir Lamb to gambol on forbidden grass is the young woman who lately got a verdict for for salary held back because she refused to appear In tights The court held that no actress unless it was stipulated in the contract need exhibit herself herselt in a state of im imn n Henrietta is skirted to her heels as the tho show girl In Marys Lamb but buther her deviltry of 01 character is exposed and it is she who leads Mr Lamb to a liaison at an ar artists artists artists studio where she is found with him by his wife both in shirt sleeves as she puts it The outward signs are that Henrietta has no physical reason to abjure tights She has a song and dance with Carle in which they declare her to be a modest little model while white her h r sleazy robe and ardent behavior indicate that she any such prudish thing Seven dramas of at ethical purport and good artistry hold their stages stag s in New NewYork NewYork NewYork York but a week or two of high tem temperature temperature temperature will sizzle them to an end and from now till the middle of August the new plays will have no dignity Marys Lamb has for Its of a wife wite to Carles cooped rooster of at ofa ata ofa a husband a It no less legitimately dra dramatic dramatic dramatic matic actress than Elita Proctor Proc or Otis who cant sing a note nor dance a step and if the usually tragic Miss Otis lets herself herselt down to the summer level of ot frolic the use of ot scowling at atthe atthe atthe the seasons warm gaiety She plays the shrew as though she were the vixen to Joseph Jeffersons Rip or the gory murderess to Edwin Booths Macbeth Her husband is trained and House h Housebroken broken to absolute submission When she goes out she locks him in But he breaks out literally and metaphorical metaphorically ly and in the awful dilemma of ot being caught by her in a studio with a model after ane a minute of ot fright he h seizes a candle gazes blankly into space and becomes a somnambulist in inquest inquest Inquest quest of at his beloved wits wife Of or course the shrew is tamed just before the play is over oer This comes of ot the husbands husband discovery that his wife used to be wicked T The songs and dances in Marys Lamb have only the slightest connection connection connection tion with the story stay At the outset forty agile and vocal v cal girls girl of a sightly aver average average average age are Introduced in hi skips and amI kicks kl ks that look eloquent but whatever it is they sing It might as well wen be e and for fop all an that the most careful listener can understand I l am cursed with memories and one of ot them themIs Is the company that Gilbert Sullivan brought to us in The Mikado The chorus as well as the principals sang so clearly that no word went to waste The first six or eight minutes of nearly nearl every musical farce nowadays Is yawp gawp and yowl without the most distant ap approach approach to intelligibility I wonder why American librettists dont save savo work by letting the opening choruses go at instead of attempting to tell anything thing to the th audience Soldiers march with girls to o set Carles Carlos show in motion but the uniforms have no significance sig significance significance then and are not seen again Thomas and Burnand cleaned the Par Parisian ParIsian Parisian isian smut In adapting this farce for America and England Carle too has scraped off the verbal ver al pastiness But Buthe Buthe Buthe he puts some very sensuous things on view One of songs tells of at his per perplexity perplexity perplexity when number one meets num number number number ber two that is to say when he hast ha t got off oft with old loves before on with new ones At the choruses choruses one two three and finally four of these loves dance Into sight The Tiie fourth hit the on the opening night so hard that they stared as though doped with knockout drops Her name Doro Dorothy Doroth Dorothy thy th Follis probably wont be writ In Inthe Inthe inthe the records of ot histrionic fame she open her mouth but as a sen sentient sentient sentient tient creature she may well be b pre preserved preserved preserved served on painted canvas and Is chis chiseled chiseled chiseled marble for Dorothy is a studio sylph whose clothes clot es enclosed her but dont drape her herno no not nol to the lightest puff of a ribbon or flutter of ot a It scarf scar And the would have hung hunga a prize medal for tor shape on her but that it might obscure an inch or two of ot her surface Carles boldest challenge to however is ia made when after frisking In the studio with the girl he has come there to meet he drowses in a chair and dreams that a dozen models modes troop In They are wrapped In long mantles while they sing to him and at each verses end the lights are put out a U white cloth screen is I lowered and on that surface the wholly denuded figures of ot the models are shadowed in sharply defined silhouettes They are cardboard figures held before a calcium light No NoThey NoThey NoThey They are animate as their slight quivers quivers ers ors of pose and signs of at breathing prove Their attitudes are those of at classic statuary or mural painting and andI I am ana told that they have not Been Deen re recruited recruited recruited from the chorus girls but from the models employed by b New York ar artists artists artists one of whom selected them and sketched the poses in which they are shown To ro makers of popular plays to catch the coin I have something to say This Is confidential though and you are arc not notto notto notto to tell anybody I 1 stipulate only onh that you shall turn over 10 per cent of or your our royalty to the Actors fund Last Sun Sunday Sunday Sunday day had the warm bright air to send the people pe to Coney Island fir the first time this season Not all the showmen were ready and a hundred buildings were placarded with the wonders that the tenants would disclose in a week or two But I counted count d structures structures structures tures in operation tha were mere vari variants variants variants ants of ot the gravity railways to be found In outdoor resorts throughout the country A new one has the longest route of ot any In the world and brags of ot it in big inscriptions and by barkers loud word of ot mouth Its height and area with the steel left bl re is Its best advertisement Most of at the gravity roads are bordered by b scenery to help the tourists Imagine they are whirled up and down Pikes Peak Mont Blanc or another height of the Rookies or the Alps Some of ot these are holdovers from last season with passages through caverns caverns caverns erns of at yelling fiends gorges of seem seeming seemIng seeming ing perils under and over waterfalls that seem to threaten drowning and arid into valleys of various shadows of death One novelty this summer is the Virginia reel because the passengers ride in round cars down a descent with many short curves so 80 that they are whirled like dancing on the he peri peripheries peripheries perIpheries of at big tops The that slide boats Into pools are are lengthened and have up upward upward upward ward tilts at the bottoms that bounce boince the craft cratt Into the air before plunging them through an e lake bor bordered bora bordered dered a red by people who laugh at the screams of delight and alarm A safe sate and an l prettier trip Is through the canals of ot Venice the gondolas floating in a slow current amidst Italian gardens under bridges and past palaces to the music of guitars and ballad voices But some folks will pay to do the work of ot amusing themselves like those who stumble through dark caverns with floors of blocks toll up stair stairways stairways stairways ways that shift their steps and slide down polished but surfaces that dump them at the bot bottom bottom bottom tom One of ot this years toboggans in which you strove to make your marrow marrowbones marrowbones marrowbones bones serve as runners for the absent sled had its joke in a sharp turn where you were hurled against a padded wall waH to finish the slide flat on your back or what where I did my earliest coasting the boys boy called belly rip or likelier in some posture that would make a con contortionist contortionist contortionist envious In its t after afternoon afternoon afternoon noon it raised bumps on a dozen faces broke a girls nose fractured a fellows ankle and by night was put out of business while detectives tried to learn the ownership with a view to suits for damage 3 We now you for forthe forthe forthe the multitude set to work at short measure plays adapted ad to gravity structures in which quarter hourly ho an audience shall be carried in gravity cars and boats through a brief but exciting story of ot romantic and pic plc picturesque picturesque adventure with actors sta stationed stationed stationed along the route In fitting scenes instead of o the beasts and goblins that now leap out tn to scare us What shall shaH the plot be you 01 ask Now now dont ask me that You are skilled in dramatizing dra dramatizing dramatizing el elevators elevators elevators and all manner of at mechanical perils and it should be easy for you to take my cue and go right on like original origInal original inal geniuses I am not joking not altogether al altogether altogether together for there Is a fortune in n any an Y device that will make the gravity rail railway railway railway way theatrical The biggest and the newest of ot the gravity constructions that give more levity than gravity to the riders Is a It steeplechase In ia an and probably probably probably ably largest steel hou in the Id At Coney Island as elsewhere In Amer America lea ica size counts In ht all games and the biggest Is apt to win Have you ever seen pictures of ot single rail straddle car railways Well Ven this huge building In filled with gravity railways with one rail to each and instead of cars the vehicles that glide on the single rod are arc horses life size flowing of at manes and tails talIs and spirited of shape but wooden of ot material There are six duplicate courses running side by b side down and up grades from a high starting plat platform platform platform form to the finish at the low terminal The aspect and feeling of a race is maintained by starting six persons on six horses abreast on the six tracks The boss tells you that the advantage of ot the inside course Is ls balanced by higher gradients on the outside rail and so 50 a fair and square chance is given en fn and actually or Imaginarily the speed of ot the horse may be increased by expert leaning forward and backward at the right points in the upward and downward stretches Anyway Anay ay the winner gets a second ride as a prize and I saw a champion jockey stay in inthe inthe inthe the saddle an hour on his original dime entry and he lie was still racing when I II quit I It is usual with these gravity shows I to entice spectators on the thc chance that tha thata a fair proportion of them will twill take the I tide side One has its greatest point of ve velocity velocity velocity placed closest to the space occupied occupied pied pled by so that the yells of f the feminine passengers P may call at attention attention 1 like an n equal number of hired barkers But the steeplechasers are men mostly as women dont care to sit c r astride of ot the wooden steeds and arnot arnot ar arc not permitted to sit sideways children may not mount at all an as tin th sport is dangerous and to fall off ff means menns something between a 8 a 1 and a fracture But many of ot the mr mc are so or so 80 awk on on th thc backs of at the hobbyhorses hobbyhorse that the risk Is lost sight of ot in the comicality Coney Islands mile square of at con com compacted amusements ns has no DO T street lamp in use during the r except from 3 I to dawn Th Til Tile towers of 01 Luna park and i and the many other tall structures a I H outlined with electric bulbs bulb the light lighte i i chute boats gravity cars care and aerial circling vehicles vehicle giving motion t the vast illumination and a firework |