Judge — December 13, 1919 — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

Drawn by Henwax Pausen AVING for years Tr... x writhed at the sight CG h i natown T op i cs of perfectly good theatre “prospects” | lured from in front of their — |] very box offices by China- town bus-barkers and transported out of the toils of Times Square ’way down to the chop suey center, the Broadway managers realized that something drastic had to be done. Should they establish barkers of their own, to stand on the sidewalks in front of the lobbies and cry to the multitudes: “Starting in ra moment, ‘The 13th Bed,’ the great boudoir mystery! Step right in!"—or “This way for the ‘Jazz Girl’! Only one dollar war tax"”? But no. Barkers were willin’, but the carriage-callers wouldn't stand for it: said they already held a complete mandate over the sidewalk and would permit no bark talk but their own. So the only thing for the managers to do was to chop out chunks of Chinatown and exhibit them in Times The price was a trifle higher, but the public was spared the long ride and hence, by inverse taximetrice, ought to pay more. Scrumptuously successful } been that Chunk of Chinkery entitled “East is We wherein Fay Bainter rolls oriental orbs, winks wistfully, and proves that bedroom farce has by no means exhausted the possibilities of pajamas. The fact that the locale happens to be in San Francisco instead of New York is immaterial: the atmosphere of picturesque hoax, so irresistible to seeing-the-towners, is faith- fully reproduced. This chop suey 4 la Sam Ship- man being served at the Astor has lately been outdone by the elaborately prepared dramatic dish, chop suey a la Belasco, The two offerings have about the parses by Abbe same relation to’each other as I numbers 37 and 38 on any orien- Dat tal bill-of-fare. The chief in- gredients are the same: a celes Square. utr” Does to Samson. By Lawton Mackett | exorE Urric, Wo, as THE rN im Fex-Sna’s Hare Tuan Detirau ————SSSS= tial ingénue in love and dis- tress, who waves out of the window at a young man in the street below, and gets scolded for it by her con- servative guardian, who cherishes her like anything. But is obliged by a cruel plot to confer her as a bride upon a Mongolian Machia- velli, The Fay Bainter chop suey has the more pronounced chicken-flavor, the Belasco concoction the more expen- sive seasoning. When Ming Toy is restive under restraint and in terror of Tongs, she acts sassy; when Doc Lum L sweet Son-Daughter bows to her hard duty because the Republic of Cl hina needs the hard cash, she is undallyingly noble. Instead of allowing herself to be auctioned off for a few yen in a prologue she, with maidenly reserve, waits until the end of the second act, and then assuming the auctioncer’s job herself, makes the subtle Sca-Crab give papa and his patriots a round hundred thou’ for her, in American currency. It is curious that in each play the Oriental villain isa very mag- netic personage. Imagine any one’s hissing jaunty George Nash as the wife-gathering Charlie Yang, or Harry Mestayer, as the elegant Sea-Crab! They have such a pleasant manner of being sinister. Yet they must be sacrificed in order that helpless maidens may * be saved from horrors and ha- rems to marry Billy Benson and the young president of the Chinese Republic. In ast is West” this villain-elimination is done _painle: by discovering that Ming Toy is the daughter of an eminent missionary. In the “Son-Daughter” Lenore Ulric does it desperately, cold- chillily, by strangling the Sea- Crab with his own queue and dragging his limp form down ge to the feet of friend Joss Which, it seems to us, is carry- ing a practical choke rather far. Harsner Trick