Judge — September 13, 1919 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

Drawn by Humax Pataren HE novelists and impression-writ- ing travelers who would assure us that the Orient is inexorable, unchangeable, in- scrutable to Occidentals, have evidently failed to convince our theatrical show- makers. The latter have not only conquered their natural awe toward the Mystic East, but have even exploited the said East up to the limit of their press agents’ wildest adjectives. They have made it as tractable, as commercially docile, as a properly hooked elephant. Were not the Orient thus amenable to unreason, how could we have such a spectacle as “Chu Chin Chow,” with its bizarre bazaars stocked with chorus girls (the program terms them “‘mannequins”) and its lyric love scenes, sucheas the one in which the fair odalisque re- sponds to Omar the Tentmaker with dulce You bet *—no doubt a quotation from the poet Hafiz, or from the “Gulistan” of Sadi, or perhaps the Broad- waiyat of Otto Harbach. This show of many colors and many maidens came back to town to sport its new costumes, just in time to you! The Obliging East By Lawton Macka.t ing up the exclusive rights to Cleopatra—dance, movie, opera, drama, bath soap, per- fume, cigarette, hair tonic, facial cream, snake medicine and wriggleization. Why, in a few thousand years he and his heirs or assigns would have gathered in gold enough to ransom Brooklyn from Manhattanish tyranny! And because of the high cost of royalty there might be, every century or so, a Broadway revue setthout the tra- ditional tummysome turn. But our imagination carries us too far. s we were about to say when the Nifty One of the Nile distracted us, ‘Chu Chin Chow” is a calculatedly popular blend. Cigarette advertisements with their searching: “How much Turkish?” have divulged the secrets of Oriental-American mixtures, explaining that one hundred per cent. Turkish is a trifle rich and exotic for the average American gullet, whereas a nicely esti- mated complement (not to say preponderance) of home- raised stuff imparts the requisite pep. The principle of this modestly admitted ad-mixture applies to the Morris Gest Show Blend. The scenery is lavish and frequently gorgeous. There are costumes which you get Equity-struck. The original English produc- tion is still holding out in its fourth year at His Majesty’s Theatre. His Majesty must be making almost as much money as Al Woods. Also, Scheherezade, author of “Ali Baba and the For- ty Thieves” and the one thousand other nights’ entertainments, must have realized something rather neat in royalties to date, the entertain- ment adapted from her story having run con- siderably over the one thousand and one nights. Though her pecunia would fail in comparison pjay by Ware with what any enter- J rising Egyptian could Rave corralled by sew- 1ca Brown—Arc ror “A Loxety Romeo” Away. eres, Summer Furs, Twat tHe Stacenanns Heagtressty Law Att Huncnep Ur anv No Prace to Dance. 24 gaze at and say “Ah-h- h-h” as you do at fire- works. In the bazaar scene fruit-baskets are handed about which sur- pass the costliest “Bon Voyage”’ steamer basket in Charles’s window, and the populace of Bagdad paw the luscious papier maché most avidly. Strange, that they should get fooled thatwayevery evening, and never catch on! The chorus girls are of assorted colors, various Mongol and mongrel races being represented; but the prevailing shade is white. cept, of course, the peanut-butter hued Desert Women. They're toasted! w Everyruixc—Lonxery