Life — September 29, 1927 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

EF, as a department, are not very stre 3 with a message or even a warning. When we hear a play justified on the grounds that “it will do a great deal of good,” we fly into a rage and pace up and down the room for hours. Oh, maybe not for hours, but a good long time, anyw Imagine our surprise, therefore, to find ourself say- ing that “Revelry,” regardless of its dramatic value, will do a great deal of good. We would even go so far is to say that it ought to be seen just for a lesson in representative government. This attitude on our part amounts practically to a volte Not that “Revelry’ hasn't dramatic value. In its lose, episodic manner it manages to pack quite a bit of excitement into its scenes, but much of this is prob- ably due to the essentially dramatic idea of a President of the United States being caught in such a mess. So long as you know that the man with mud down the side face. of his face and mud on the back of his soul is the Chief 1 are bound to anyway. Miss ecutive of God's Green Footstool, get a little kick out of the proceeding Watkins has not done such a good job with “Revel as she did with “Chicago,” but “Ch ‘o” was her own brain-child and here she has been working with the brain-child of Samuel Hopkins Adams. And a very impudent, insulting and thoroughly swell child it is, too. E cannot see where any question of 1é comes in simply because some very crooked gents are up for what they were. Of course, getting Ber- ton Churchill to play the bartered President was piling whatever it is people pile on Ossa. ‘The least they could have done would have been to give him a red beard. But they took the moustache off the Secretary of the Interior, so a certain concession was made to Rom: and a note on the program says that “the action Washington, D. C., in the day beyond It does not specify in which dire The cast, especially George MacFarlane and Jeffer- son de Angelis, was chosen with th ne loving attention to detail that elected Mr. Churchill President, and they make “Revelry” a vivid and almost compulsory experi- ence for the playgoer who wants to keep up with th -majesté sho akes place in our own day.” ion. HEN we are not being cross at people who like plays “because they do good,” we are fulminating against people who dislike plays because they deal with “un- pleasant types.” “Aren't there enough decent folk in the world,” the k, “so that we t have to have plays about seur To which our reply is nothir partly because we feel that remark doesn deserve a reply and partly because we can't think of one For such drama-lovers reters drawn from the pleasanter pastures of life, “Women Go On Forever” will be a great trial. There is prob- ably no lower ¢ egation of bums represented on the stage to- than you will find on the stage of the Forrest. Theatre. “And the unpleasantness of their actions finally becomes so habitual that the thing passes for comedy and every time some one is killed or violated a loud laugh goes up from the audience. But it is grim with considerable power such a as must have their c comedy and onc and we came away feeling that Daniel Rubin, the author, has a great deal of stuff. But we felt that after sceing “Devils” a few seasons ago. Og. 0 ta BOR SBR. ARY BOLAND does much the best work she has done since “The Torch Bearers,” and in a new type of part. She is the shepherd of this little flock of rats and on her falls the onerous duty of keeping tabs on the evening’s shootings and lecheries, a job which keeps her running from ro room practically every minute. xd Perkins, last st poignant and The cast as a whi vod, especially Osg Elizabeth ‘Taylor and Douglass Montgomery, the two named taking part in one of the w terrible love-scenes it has ever been our luck to encounter. Needless to say, the audience laughs at all the wrong places. But if you like ta have your drama poked through the bars of your cage at y you can safely take a chance on “Women Go On Forever. It is miles thead of most of the stuff you get, unbalanced rations though it may be. SOMETHING “ about their getting so careless of late. said to our stage detectives In at least three plays in which murders have been committed, the of the and making a preliminary investigation, have cither retired to the attic, leaving the ground floor to the murderers for making raucous plans for escape, have left the house entirely and gone supper. In “Women Go On Forever,” after two suspicious killings have taken place, the police withdraw from the neigh- borhood while the suspects and their friends dash in and out of the house like characters in a French farce. Have we citizens no rights to protection? Is this city to be turned into a highway for crooks and murderers without fear of arrest? (Answers to-morrow.) Robert Benchley. must be crime detectives, after visiting the scene or else home to comicbooks.com