Judge — January 4, 1919 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Hearty Perennials: By Lawton Mackall liar.” And there is no in- N considering “The Mikado,” “ Pinafore.” “Gondoliers,” et al., aii tie now being ably reper- a My (ay Ow toired at the Park SEC OLEO) Theatre, New York, by Mr. Hinshaw’s band of coopera- imitable family group like that of Broadway Willie (also in “Oh, My Dear!) with WY vio his divorced wife, the little monkey and his delirium tremer The girls are all too slow. tors, the nineteen-eighteen Broadwayite cannot but note that Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan fail to appreciate the all importance of smartness. Where are the gowns by Bendel and plots by default? Simple-hearted Vic- torians! We don’t suppose they ever even heard of the Three Fates of Fashion—Vogue, Vanity ir and Harper’s Bazar—which control the destinies of drama. If only the partners Bolton and Wodehouse, libret- tists of “Oh, Boy!" and subsequent Oh! shows could have taken them in hand and tactfully pointed out to ' them just what was what! “The Mikado,” for example, is inexcusably unmod- | ish. It is planned on the antiquated theory that mere i healthy human nature, touched with innocent absurd- j ity, deserves to be laughed at by the best people—just as though one could omit genteel cynicisms and intima- tions of immorality and yet be rewarded by kid-gloved clapping. The very setting of the play unfortunate. Japan! How many people in the Social Register live in that locality? Worse than that, it is a street in Japan. If it had been a country club in Japan or a bachelor apartment in Japan or the fountain- room of Mrs. Van Peyster’s Long Island residence in Japan, that wouldn’t have been so bad—but a public street, where the most ordinary sort of people may walk and sing at will—how vulgar! And all the charac- ters are Japanese, when everybody knows that a single Jap, serving as valet, is all that social usage allows. Then, too, the costumes are hardly such as one sces on Fifth Avenue or at the Ritz. Silk kimonos all evening is pre- posterous. There should be afternoon gowns in the first act and in the second silk pa mas. The portrayal of matrimony is also peculiarly obsolete. W hen Pitti-§ no one button! holes the opportunity to remark wittily that marriage is a mess. Neither Pooh-Bah nor the Lord High Executioner has a spouse to be suspicious of him—the sort that has outlasted her desirability and makes life a perpetual game of Nag, you're it!—like the doctor’s bitter half in “Oh, My Dear!” whose pleasant summary of wedlock is, “I’ve found two words in the dictionary that mean the same thing: husband and hree little maids from school” —how hopelessly tame! Should have been changed to “Three little girls from Rector’s,” with Is in their wake. Such common-sense alterations and the scattering about the stage of benches, chairs, jardinieres and other obstacles to be vaulted or scaled, would have transformed “The Mikado” into something snappy. As it is, the show, with its young-hearted music, is as unsophisticated and socially inept as Santa Claus. Enthusiasm for life isn’t being done this year. Yes, with coaching of a certain sort, Gilbert and Sullivan might have turned out the success of the season. But, instead, per- sisting in their own shame- lessly spontaneous way, they produced the masterpiece of the century, together with a few others almost as good. Their works, free from taint or cheap timeliness, grow in glee from yeartoyear. There is hardly a line of “The Mikado” but twinkles with the laughs of a thousand exhilarated audiences. When showmakers of today go in for wholesomeness they generally achieve saccharinity. Innocence is portrayed as arrested development—cute, wistful imbecility. Thus in “Some Time” it was thought advisable to offset the array of dames in standardized tights and feathers with a 100% child-minded heroine in white fluffiness. Her personality is as magnetic as angel cake. If they had wanted a refreshing contrast between the strutters, arm-wavers, aigrette display-figures and drapery props, why didn’t they give her an adult mentality? We are not blaming the actress: she swal- lows the réle handed to her and stoically leaves her brain in her dressing-room. “Three Wise Fools” and ‘Daddies” would be good plays if scraped. If the three old fossils and their wistful ward would call a halt at the maudlin point, and if Mi Eagels could be persuaded by her “daddy” to take some beef, wine and iron, everybody would feel much better. Meanwhile Gilbert and Sullivan con- tinue to be as usual, both wholesome and hilarious. comicbooks.com