Judge — October 23, 1920 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

OR the kind of a show called “The Green wich Village Follies of 1920" that title ] serves as well as any | other. Itisn’t the least bit de | scriptive, as the “follies” dem: onstrate careful and elaborate planning and in their luxurious extravagance th isn’t the ' slightest hint of the sordid: of Greenwich Villa No title could be really descriptive of this med! i One comes away from it with some- npressions that who had been to ng of the confusion of moved the inebriated cowboy Jelodrama, to sing himself to sleep with an .the Play keen indeed, in dealing with Scotch stinginess. I you don’t mind mecting on the stage a woman who freely admits that she is a professional co respondent and doesn’t object to talking in detail about her calling, you will not be greatly shocked by “Marry the Poor Girl” in’ which Mr. Owen oung Davis ascends or descends from his beaten path of virtuous melodrama to giddy contemporary with the commonplace occurrence of a young man at a house party getting into a state of arce. Starting a x Tuts 1s improvised ditty running: “The alcoholic absent-mindedness and passing the | 1 Greenwicnt night in the sleeping-room of his host’s daugh is the pretelest: girl I seen; Vittac ter, the spectator is carried through episodes and She'd a face like a horse-an-bugey; Fortes tere pee | § I met her leaning on the lake, wen or Persiax complications arising frorp that error. They are | % Oh, firemen, save my MALLET DANCERS innocent in themselves and are provocative of ‘The impressions are far more gorgeous than the primitive ones the cowboy, though equally mixed. They are inspired by impressionist scenery, jazzy and other music, wonderful com f color and design in costume, bizarre and bazaar and girls, girls, girls. all times most tastefully ual than intellectual, a binations o dancing. ingenious effects, some that defec nerously undressed at times, and . rm costumed. Of course it is more le Scotch company headed by Mr. Graham are ignored in considerable hilarity. Probability and possibility t devising the incidents, but those qualities a not to be expec ted in contemporary farce-writing. No one is going into ecstasies over the acting of ** Marry th Poor Girl,” but perhaps Mr. Morosco thinks the quality of pep in the story and the presence of pretty girls in the cast overcome i] fd thing rather to be expected in New York today. Come to think PENING a new theatre in New York has ceased to cause | of it, perhaps ‘A Pipe Dream” would have been a more descrip: wild excitement in the city, but so attractive and well tive title than the one referring to Greenwich Village. arra nged a house as the new Times Square deserved a play with Bt ° * ¢ more convincing qualities than “The Mirage,” which Mr. “THERE was something quaintly and not altogether Edgar Selwyn provided as the opening attraction. The i tnattractively provincial about “Don’t Tell.” both ( theme is a hackneyed one—the discovery by the nice young rf in play and performance. It was done by a . man that the young woman of his affec- tions has acquired an undesirable past A and it is not handled in an origir way. Certainly the author could not have expected to startle « interest a New York audience by Moffat, who wrote “Bunty Pulls the Strings,” of blessed memory. It was so very Scotch that at moments it was hard for the New Yorker of other than Caledonian origin to get the lines. Mr. Moffat frankly introducing it toa circle of society which has been familiar on the stage {mits that his education for the theatre was gained mostly 1s a platform entertainer in Scotland. Don't Tell” sug gests this and it is easy to pic ture Scotch audiences in town: | halls and lecture rooms going into roars of laughter over the kind of domesticity and do- mestic humorous _ tragedies | here presented. If it were done in more sophisticated fashion than that followed by the very Scotch company, it ever since Cumille was a very young girl. Nor is the Ameri can female mercenary ever a sympathetic heroine with American audiences. Florence Reed, who had this ungrate- ful part, did very little by her interpretation to over- come the handicap. She stirred not the slightest eme . tion, and if a straw vote had been taken in the audience there is no doubt the verdict would have been unanimous. that she was entitled to every- ; would be simply dull. |e “Don’t Tell” gives the lic thing that happened to her. \ fe to the tradition that a Scotch- In the matter-of-fact. young man can’t see a jokeand shows 1. Tye Geeexwien Vintace Fours’ it Taxes rive: pent business-man lover and the i that Scotch humor is very GIRLS TO MAKE A BIRTHDAY CAKE ve know-it-all roué bad comicbooks.com