Judge — August 23, 1924 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

ABSENT-MINDED BurGLaR—Shucks! On Reviewing Plays in Summer (Continued from page 10) as uncomfortable a time of it as if I had gone to the theater. Nevertheless, I persist in avoiding the theater in spite of myself. Why, I don’t know, any more than I know why it is that whenever I approach an icebox and try to hack off a piece of ice, a chip of the ice is always cer- tain to go up my sleeve. There are some things that can’t be explained, like that, for instance, or, again, why it is that one never sees a Jap with his hair mussed. I know perfectly well that I’d be a lot more comfortable in a cool theater than in a boiling roadhouse or on a perspiring roof garden, but the tradition that a theater is not cool in summer, a tradition wholly baseless, always fetches me. Thus when, recently, supposed to review a revival of the old melo- drama, “Sweeney Todd,” in the Frazee Theater, I idiotically spent the evening instead on one of these so-called roof gardens, I paid for my folly by never being so hot in my life, both over and under the collar. This particular roof garden is at- tached to one of the more doggy local hostelries and the show that is nightly put on—put on is the word— Nobody home! beats anything you can find this side of a Havana bordello. Some of the roof gardens are not so bad, but this particular one, and one other, are the last words in one- ring circus sideshows. The chief humor of the roof of which I am speaking and which is typical of a certain phenomenon in American life lies in its dramatis persone. The cast of characters that plays this roof nightly reminds one, in its general if not in its specific aspects, of a touring “Way Down East” company suddenly drafted to act “Lady Windermere’s Fan.” It is so determined to be fashion- able that the truly elegant headwait- ers must needs constantly suck secretly at lozenges to suppress their snickers. It appears that the tech- nique of being fashionable in this modish rendezvous consists chiefly in paying two dollars and a half for a quarter of an inch of caviar, talking about the Prince of Wales in a loud voice and in terms of easy familiarity, and sending back the salad dressing as being a trifle too sour. Among the leaders of the world of fashion present on the night I was fool enough not to have gone to “Sweeney Todd” were two members of the cloak and suit trade with their wives, six stockbrokers with their wives, several ladies of easy virtue with their means of support visible at the same tables, four retired boot- leggers, two movie actors, about thirty visiting buyers and, in a far corner, one gentleman. On one of the summeriest of the summer nights, what is commonly AND THEY CALLED IT HEAT PROSTRATION Orrice Boy—Yes, sir, the boss is in. No, it’s none of my business what you want to see him conferences. about. No, we never have any