Life — June 23, 1921 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

Snapshots HERE is nothing so funny as a good bur- lesque and nothing so ghastly as a poor one. That is a flat statement of fact. Both good and ghastly are to be found in “Snapshots of 192! With a trio like Nora Bayes, Lew Fields and DeWolf Hopper to work with, an author has every chance in the world. And at least two of the authors have made the most of their opportunity. John Hastings Turner and James Montgomery Flagg have written two burlesques of the triangle drama, one as Americans imagine it in England and the other as the English imagine it in America, each just about as good as it possibly could be made. In fact, they are so subtle and so quietly done that one wonders how they ever survived in the same bill with some of the rest. This picking out the best and worst, however, is evidently a matter of personal taste (how true that is in all we do in this workaday world, after all, don’t you think so? ). Some of the newspaper critics thought the triangle plays dull, and cited the “Clair de Lune” and detective-play burlesques as being really the high points in the performance. And there you are, as we used to say in school. “GNAPSHOTS of 1921,” therefore, must be considered from two points of view. If you are a member of one school of laughers, you will get in late enough to miss the “ Deburau” burlesque (called, as it would be, “ Dub-Derro” ), will marvel at the quiet completeness of Mr. Turner’s triangle play and suffer internal injuries at Mr. American version, which is also pertect in its way, especially in the hands of Lew Fields as the American millionaire who, in his Fifth Ave. mansion, wears a six-shooter and a General Custer make-up. (Memo- randum for producers: Get Mr. Flagg to do more stuff for revues.) There will also be a great deal of laughter for you in Glen MacDonough’s “ The Children’s Hour in a Modern Nur- sery,” with Mr. Fields this time appearing as a tough little boy in a purple Fauntleroy suit. Then, if you belong to Class 1A, you will be through for the evening. There will be things in the “Clair de Lune” bur- lesque that will make you wonder if all these centuries of strug- gle to bring humanity from the protoplasmic state have been worth while, if it wouldn't be better to apply the torch now and, as Mr. Belasco so chokingly said in closing “ Deburau go down with all sails set.” And, at the close of the burlesque on detective dramas, done in newspaper-syndicate verse, you will be well on your way up Forty-Second Street making strange sounds. LIFE On the other hand, a perfectly reputable standard will be represented by those who don't care so much for the triangle burlesques, but who scream with delight at Mr. H. I. Phillips’ “Clara Da Loon” and vow that Frances Nordstrom has done the cleverest bit of work of the season in her detective travesty entitled “ Who Done It.” And can it with justice be said that what Class 1A laughs at is better than what Class 1B laughs at ? It can, but it causes only hard feeling to say let it go unsaid. so we will ASBESTOS HERE will be little difference of opinion, however, about Several features of “Snapshots of 1921.” All classes must admit that the finale to the first act, involving such simple prop erties as a large patent-leather back-drop and a short flight of steps, together with a well-trained chorus and some lights, makes as striking a scene as John Murray Anderson could have devises There ought also to be unanimity in awarding to the Chinese tot, who is led across the stage in the “ Yokohama Lullaby” number, the celluloid comb-and-brush tray for being the blank: est-looking child seen on the stage during the season of 1920-21 Cute, it is true, but unquestionably a histrionic dumbbell. ND there is no need of taking a plebiscite on Nora Bayes’ ability to put a song across. Give her a number contain ing one part song to nine parts water (and she is given many such in “ Snapshots” ), and by the time she has sung the chorus through six times, with addenda, reference notes and obiter dicta, you are convinced that it is another “Over There.” It isn’t until you buy the music the next day and rush to the piano with it, only to discover that it is a steal on “ Chop-Sticks,” that you realize what a magician Nora Bayes is. Honorable mention must also be made of Miss Bayes’ singing partner, Alan Edwards, for bearing up so well under the most trying circumstances. In one of their songs, Mr. Edwards has to stand with Miss Bayes in the center of the stage, with no dance steps to take up his attention, and gaze in the tender manner at an imitation rose while Miss Bayes sings the verse and chorus through alone three or four times, exhorting Mr Edwards in a slow tempo to “remember the rose.” There is little danger of his forgetting the rose. He has nothing to do but look at it for ten minutes and try not to appear any sillic thanhe has to. And he doesn’t, which is great credit to him DeWolf Hopper is the only one of the triumvirate whos talents are wasted. Not once is he allowed to sing a Gilbert and Sullivan number or recite “Casey at the Bat.” BO ET SETS “AN AISS LULU BETT” has been awarded the Pulitzer prize for 1921 for the American play which shall “ best repre- sent the educational value and power of the stage in raising th standard of good morals, good taste and good manners.” This is fine, and “Miss Lulu Bett” deserves it. But deserves even more. How about a prize some day for the best piece of dramatic writing ? Robert C. Benchley. comicbooks.com