Judge, 1925-01-10 · page 12 of 36
Judge — January 10, 1925 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Explanation for Modern Readers This page from *Judge* magazine features theatrical reviews disguised as humorous sketches. The top section shows "Laughs from the Shows"—brief comedic scenes from stage productions like "Annie Dear" and "The Music Box," featuring actress Bobbie Watson and others. These are not political cartoons but rather entertainment gossip illustrations. The main article, "Another Round" by George Jean Nathan, is a theater critic's commentary on a recurring dramatic plot device: quarantining an unmarried couple together overnight in a bedroom to generate scandal and tension. Nathan satirizes playwrights' reliance on this tired trope across decades—whether forced by rainstorms, broken automobiles, or convenient innkeeper excuses. He notes the new play "Quarantine" (and others like it) merely recycled this predictable scenario with minor variations, though he praises the performances by Helen Hayes and others. The satire targets theatrical laziness, not politics.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
~ \ a) + Qobort'ateErQn | { Bobbie Watson in “Annie Dear” “The Magnolia Lady” \ Darkie—Shoot! Big boy, pO “Let me give you a little lesson | “re faded! 4 on etiquette. After you butter “aded nothing! I'ma fast ‘e. bread, don’t fold it.” black!” Another Round and bedroom by virtue of a plague. Aside from the new label, the pro- eedings are much the same as al- ways. These proceedings you know. For twenty minutes it looks as. if there was no other way out of it but for the unmarried young woman and young man to share the same nocturnal chamber—that is, it looks that - to everyone but the audi- ene the ushers. And then, of * course, th is saved for pre and for the tender sensibiliti Rev. Dr, George Jean Nathan by having the young man spend the night out on the porch, Yet though the materials are old as the hills, the present auth } by George Jean Nathan | I | ] OR many years now, play- | | wrights have been scratching H } 1 their hats to de lew Ways ta young m vl a young not married, into the same arrassing bedroom. But, up to the moment of going to pre all th is the presentation of the same old play in a newly named false fa ‘Thus, if it isn’t a rain storm that forces the couple to spend the night His. abled automobile, and if it isn’t a disabled automobile it is pretty sure to be the device of making the bed- room in question the only one that the innkeeper has. left. nyson Jesse now comes along, puts another fal re on the venerable situation {dam—You are too ex- really excellent: performan and labels that false face quarantine. { travagant. You'll have to part of little Helen Ha “Quarantine” shows us the familiar turn over an old leaf. Miss Hayes is a most fet couple lodged in the same bungalow seem to have accomp in a deserted farmhouse it is a aided by Edgar Selwyn, has managed humor into them, and this humor is considerably a to inject some agr Fannie Brice and Bobbie augmented and heightened by Mr. Clarke in“The Music Bor” droit direction and by a the This hing come- Selwyn's (Continued on page 22) comicbooks.com