OCR Text |
Show fyt 0 too raews or me I THEATRICAL (.WORLD tion, hits upon tho notion of hiring a pair of detectives, man and wife, to act as servants. The detectives are led to believe that (heir services are desired for sleuthing purposes and so innocently fall into the servant scheme. Here, plainly enough, an excellent beginning. But this Idea the authors have touched upon only momentarily momen-tarily at the very curtain of an unduly prolonged and garrulous first act, and have subsequently maneuvered with more or less banality. Some of the dialogue is fresh and amusing, and two of the situations situ-ations are nicely juggled, but the play in general stutters. Handled With Deftness. The company, save in one or two instances, in-stances, is a good one. Miss Laura Hope Crews, an accomplished comedienne, has the role of the wife unable to run her own household, and handles it with her usual deftness. M:ss Crews, like many an actress of her age, on this occasion once more again resorts to the absurdly patent stratagem of getting herself up like au ingenue. Little Miss Vivian Tobin, a better actress ac-tress than the overly praised Helen Haves, is excellent as the daughter. Cyril Sco"tt, as the husband, is the familiar Cyril Scott of twenty years standing. Robert Hudson, in the role of the ne:gh-bor ne:gh-bor looks and acts like Robert Edeson. He is gifted with a pair of hands that seem constantly to baffle his attempts to control them at such times as they are Hot in his pockets. Miss Minna Qombel is the neighbor a wife in the Oza Waldrop manner. Sidney Sid-ney Toler is genuinely droll as the detective de-tective serving as the butler. And Miss Josephine Hall is a good foil in the role of the detective-cook. The one setting shows the living- room of the Fessc-nden's summer place in New Jersey. It was designed by a Clifford Pember. If. as I observed a few weeks ago, the bedroom of the bungalow in "The Girl in the Limousine" looks like Luna Park, this living room of a New Tersev summer place looks like a massive chop suev parlor. The settings of the average New York production are generally- twice as amusing as- the play. ible in the Casino, particularly electric. I A better show than "Nothing But Love." it yet has l:ttle in the way of line, tune or girl to set the pulse prancing. j So far as "Hello Alexander," the Mc-Intyre Mc-Intyre and Heath vehicle, current in the Forty-fourth Streettheater, is concerned, there is equally little to report. The two gentlemen in point are acceptable black-faced black-faced clowns, but their present libretto provides them with meager material. Of quality much better than these exhibitions exhibi-tions is "Apple Blossoms." at the Giobe-Here Giobe-Here a score by Fritz Kreisler and Victor Jacobi y'elds a sufficiently beguiling evening. eve-ning. The book, by William le Baron, founded upon a . venerable French play, and the lyrics by the same writer, are. if lacking'in comedy, none the less nan-died nan-died with dexterity. The company includes John Charles Thomas, whose assiduous efforts to be unaffected result in a complete air of affectation, and Miss "Wilda Bennett. "Passing Show" Pleases. The new "Passing Show." at the Winter Win-ter Garden, the most comfortable of all cur music halls, is an opulent affair with many diverting moments. Blanche Ring. Charles Winninger and James Barton are among the professors: a number of the 1 vigins are up to the old Ziegfeld scratch: some of the costuming is very lovely, and the show as a whole compares favorably with the antecedent exhibitions. The evening may be recommended to the person seeking a somewhat livelier amusement than that provided by the omnipresent detective plays, uplifting bucolic comedies and gauze-drop-curtain fantasies. In the Criterion we engage a so-called satirical comedy by Harvey O'Higgins and Harriet Ford entitled "On the Hiring Line." The play discloses no satire and what comedy it vouchsafes is largely on the farcical-plane. The plot idea, an entertaining en-tertaining one, concerns a household in the countrv bedeviled by the servant problem. The husband, driven to despera- By GEORGE JEAN NATHAN. ,jF,v YORK, Nov. 15. Raymond Hitclicock Is one of the most ef- iective music show comedians on O'dr stage for a simple reason. Wliere the majority of his col-pa col-pa believe that humor is best to be by exhibiting themselves in the T-e regalia of the professional ter, Hitchcock realizes that a red nose, "o Pints and pretzel-shaped eyebrows akin to the deadly prefacing of a Birith "Here's a funny story." therefore exposes himself not as w Tim Buctoo, nor as Professor Am-K Am-K Golightly, nor as the Sultan of Zuzu t as a freak with cardboard ears and tthaaical moustache not as any such of the passe musical comedy plat-nbut plat-nbut simply as Hitchcock: the Hitchcock that parades Broadway, shaved in the Lambs' club, lunches to Knickerbocker, and pays 10 cents itlUis hat ba- And the result is obviouaiy amusing one. i.l,1 a funny man naturally, he Itu I7 man 0n the stae; that Is, if I 1 chosen the stage as his profession. : funny man naturailv, all the ;"5 George Ade ever wrote, all the no:e paJnt on Broadway and all mroon pants in Cain's storehouse Fl Oake him one. fty He Is Good. ttfteS ta Sood cr.edian not bell be-ll L ? ""rMtists to write him com-Hti.f.(he com-Hti.f.(he "sually hires very dull tatr- f. r-t because he was born with iTi'?" "is face isn't a bit funnier "Obert Mantell's), not because he ses '"hromatlc wardrobe (he .?e street with not much less e is , j ne dresses on the stage) H m,;??'1 comedian simply because It c one and because he has Usoii. 6ense not t0 attempt, with s and paints, to gild the tediin' f. . orse Bickel is a good co- re 'h 8arne 'reason. And for the d? ? Ed,Qle py is not. And Jef- rHooftk 18 nat' And nine out Nit e conternporaneous pantaloons lfeCk. Presently appearing In the 'WlL,?,1.?19 version of "Hitchy-P "Hitchy-P a w ?' HHchcock the show would P burner i tLculary enlivening affair; BS V u erlved largely from the fc Hitchcock 1,rthrUbbCr stamPs- But r' ev.ni, . becomes a most recre-Nni recre-Nni ir,J' fur'her galvanized bv a W4D In girl hight White Deer an"L len Falls- pa-'- 'ho. wheth-?4enr. wheth-?4enr. S 0 PaPoose or not th:s in Jon n5, sh Pretest leas ob-. ob-. "roadway since the season he- PfJ Is Drawn. I?1 LyVi" ?''-j:a- :'-a"' to a show fikoigh nnr , "rt '-' " By. Love." SjMUr i h? ' : tl,!5 Tomies is a natural 2Wr la " that the average E8? at natural comedian. His n- he iT' are redolent of per-fcfc'nstaking per-fcfc'nstaking rjncciou3, uucomforL- b,re'remaICih:0ck thieves a !a-jKh wi-J-k half . Ugh- Tombes goes afler makiil, ?ozen gestures, an elab-t'Jlts elab-t'Jlts fac'i-'i ad a pair of ' 'Moii . 6 show in which this P v'it th. !"' else. Its libretto lo0rtof Fr:":k Summers. HlU: .L:'- is the Hauerbaeh-' Hauerbaeh-' Tne Little Whopper," via- L B |