Life — November 1, 1917 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

Mostly Girls and Gorgeousness F that is the sort of thing you like, you will like “Doing Our Bit” at the Winter Garden very much indeed. Merely to use the words Winter Garden is descriptive in advance. The recipe is familiar, Take a large quantity of pretty girls, just a suspicion of costume, but gorgeous what there is of it, mix thoroughly with dancing and light music of the latest Broadway vintage, scatter through it a few alleged comedians, and then serve in a rapid succession of elaborate scenic settings. This has never been known to fail to please the appetite of the tiredest business man. “Doing Our Bit” follows the Winter Garden formula with fidelity. The girls are quite as nu- merous, pretty and shapely as ever, the undressing is quite as gorgeous, the music is cheery, but with no striking numbers; the minor comedians are as unfunny as usual, but with a strong brake on their tendency to be vulgar, and gorgeous scenes follow one another in profusion, the climax being a stirring one rep- resenting the disembarkation of our soldiers in France. The new Winter Garden show is up to the standard. It is not meant for highbrows, but this, of course, will not dis- courage the t. b, m. ASV oy DY HE same formula might almost fit “ Jack o' Lantern,” but that entertainment centres about the personality of Mr. Fred Stone. The elaborate gathering of girls, costumes, music and scenery this time is only a background for one of New York's most popular comic stars. It is not meant that these particulars are neglected, for they are a very important part of the show, some of the settings being unusually attractive, notably one in candy land with a ballet of candy ladies to emphasize the present high cost of sweets. Interest naturally centres in the work of Mr. Fred Stone and a comparison with his previous performances. It would be too much to expect that he should be as funny as he was in “Chin Chin,” and in fact he isn’t quite up to that high mark of fun-making. It is not for lack of endeavor, though, for if ever a comedian worked harder, more continually and more conscientiously than he does in “ Jack o’ Lantern,” it isn't a matter of record. It is only by comparison with him- self that he suffers, for he makes enough laughs to build the reputations of two or three less noted comedians. “ Jack o’ Lantern " is an attractive entertainment of its kind, and will keep up the Globe's record for long runs. Re <3 TS off to Messrs. Elliott, Comstock and Gest. They said they would start their big production of “Chu Chin Chow" promptly at cight o'clock, and they did. [t was a little bit hard on the theatregoers who had been so often fooled by SOMEWHERE IN PARIS THE PHRASE BOOK similar emphatic statements of other managers, and who on this occasion were kept standing at the back of the theatre until the end of the first scene, but it shows that a managerial promise can be kept. “Chu Chin Chow” is our old friend’“ Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" in a new version and a specially gorgeous set- ating. Everything about it is in the exaggerated Orientalism made conventional by Rinehart’s productions. This means a riot of color and all sorts of absurdities of form in costumes and settings, but in the present instance means also some highly novel and picturesque Oriental strect scenes, to which the big stage of the Manhattan gives ample space. The litera- ture of the piece is reminiscent of English pantomime, and the music, when not of the same school, is Anglo-Oriental. In the large cast are found the names of Florence Reed, Kate Condon and Messrs, Tysone Power and Henry Dixey. Vampires’ Union, No. 6, and the lower East Side have been heavily drawn on for voluptuous-eyed beauties of the Orient, and the management has apparently taken a long chance with the box office in equipping them and everyone on the stage in gorgeous apparel. The result is an unusually entertaining large-scale spectacle which will doubtless become a standing attraction of the season, DES SEBS HE spectacular gorgeousness and claborate staging of these big entertainments mak legitimate little light comedy like “ Romance and Arabella seem by contrast rather a puny