Judge — June 21, 1924 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

Iss Bertua Broap. who makes her first. appearance on Broad- to Dream. She should have usec Mr. Irving Kaye Davis, author of the play, into cutting out a number of lines and bits of business that cause the audi- ence to snicker impolitely at her expense. Miss Broad is not a bad looking girl, but is hardly in the eutic the beam, as she in all pr voice, she uss, Lopping ability does, at a good 150 odd pounds. ‘Therefore, when the hero of the play alludes to h few minutes as “my little princess further, at the end of one of th her to sleep with “Rock folks out front may be forg very and, cts sings Bye Baby,” the en a couple of But this is not the only humorous fea- ture of what Mr. Davis undoubtedly de- Mr. Davis thly worked up over the fate s geniuses in this matter-of-fact world of ours. His hero is a writer who is, according to Mr. Davis—whose word for it we have to accept since he vouchsafes no proof of the fact—one of these great geniuses. signed to be a serious drama. is consi that mee He is so great a genius, indeed, that no manager will produce any of his s and no editor print any of his stories. re not yet educated up to such his Without sary for the hero wife. Says: it become funds, to sacrifice his art and take a job editing work a cheap fiction magazine. The makes him disconsolate and mood, genius goes to pot: and in desp: shoots himself. The final curtain’ falls with the wife kneeling beside his dead body, lifting her arms to the ceilin proclaiming loudly that she will conse- crate the rest of her life to safeguard geniuses from such disaster. In fewer words, whangdoudle. number of Any yeniuses have flourished de spite the cireumstance that financial need have forced them to take lowly jobs on the side. Shakespeare didn’t shoot him- self because fate made him earn a few pennies holding horses for the rich folk outside a playhouse, nor did: Ibsen swal- low carbolic acid because at one time he had to go out and earn a living asa theater janitor. It may be interesting to Mr. Davis, and somewhat more apposit know that Theodore Dreiser once e dime novels for Street & Smith ir to get enough money to enable him to continue the writing of one of the finest of his novels. My intelligence bureau informs me that Mr. Davis is by profession a press agent. UPTOWN AND DOWNTOWN by George Jean Nathan Rails Houdini tries to get out of the subway jam. T trust that he is a proficient one. He will need a great deal of skill to persuade people to pi lustrous A Strangers from Now C. Fagan. T put off sec long as possible, since the ports on it that red mit their mone - on his play. Nor less “Two wy Myron ig this one as confidential re- me were not such ess to View it. ed it, TP may say that I reports didn’t go half far If a worse lot of meaningless as to inflame my ¢ Having at | the confident enough. noise has been hoisted atop a theater plat- form in the last few seasons, T must been laid up with the influenza at the time and missed it. vie So far as Tam able to an’s rumpus has some- thing to do with the devil’s battle for the soul of mortal man, but the w so foggy that I may be mistaken and may be greatly humiliated when the author writes a letter to the editor insisting that » thing is 1s the theme of his play is a protest against child labor in the Newfoundland cotton mills “Two chiefly a Strangers from Nowhere.” is eture on religious and. spirit- ualistic topies delivered by Fritz Leiber. The M. Leiber stands in the center of the stage for two solid hours running and, his Dathed in delivers himself ny ven spotlight, with considerable p: e elocution of the ‘agan philoso- As Tsay, the bulk of these philosophies and wisdoms chides and wisdoms. me, T knw That they are excessively tiresome, : but exactly what they are driv ing at 1 that Tam unable to tell There is no more drama in Mr. Vs exhibit) than Mr. is. In fact. though you may not believe it, there is less you, there is) in (UGENE O'Netas “AML God's Chillin Got Wings” failed to stir up) the bloody race riots that the Kuo Kluxers predicted. One was led to believe that if were the play er presented down in the vers there would be a pitched battle in Washington Square between the white citizens of New York led by Arthur Bris bane and the Rey. Dr. John Roach Straton lougal street by Provincetown on the one hand, and the black citizens of New York led by Will Vodery’s Jazz, Band and Florence Mills on the other. actually happened on the night the pl was produced was nothing more than what happened on the night that cither “The Right to Dream” or “Two Strangers from Nowhere” Thi sle audience. On was produced. never seen a more pea this oce: sion, even the brats who custom- noisy the night playing tag arily mi in Macdongal street were unwontedly Not a shot was not a bomb exploded; not a pail of r was in sight. Phe O'Neill play has nothing in it. to offend the whites, though it may conceiv- -behaved and quiet. ably contain certain passages that will not drive our colored friends © However, T have long obs zy with joy. ved that on occasions like this the negro has a lot more sound sense and good manners than his white brothe he latter is always for letting out a great yell of indignation if his toes are stepped upon. ‘The negro simply shuts up, buys himself a new mauve and maroon necktie, and lets it go at that. Paul Robeson’s performance cf the réle of Jim Harris is an excellent piece of work. Since Robeson is a negro we may therefore expect a further burst. of (Continued on page 30) comicbooks.com