The New Order of Musical Comedies

Helpful Hints on What to Do with Your Left-Over Farces

DOROTHY PARKER

MUSICAL comedies aren't what they used to be when I was a girl. I don't mean to be heart-rending about the thing— I'm just calling your attention to it.

They don't go about a musical comedy the way they used to. They don't start things off with an opening chorus of merry villagers in the national peasant dress of the Eaves Costume Company, scattering property roses, and singing about how abnormally happy they are, for the prince is going to be married, and it looks like a big day for the village. They don't lay the scene in the kingdom of Neurasthenia and make the leading lady a princess, thus giving the hero an opportunity to accent her title on the last syllable whenever he speaks to her. No longer is the comedian cast as a sultan or a pasha or a bey, or something, and I haven't seen a naval lieutenant hero all season. They never set the second act in somebody's studio in the Latin Quarter any more, and they don't have those good old masquerade balls where all the chorus dress as gypsies and where the heroine puts on a red satin mask and thus completely conceals her identity. They have entirely done away with the drinking scene, in which the chorus men, clad in early English hunting costume, put their feet on the stage chairs, and, waving their individual drinking cups on high, burst into some song about the advantages of inebriety as an institution.

Even the properties aren't what they used to be. They don't have moons any more, rising jerkily above the tropical palms of the jungle setting. They don't go in for those flower-wreathed swings, in which the chorus used to swing far out over the apprehensive orchestra. There are no longer trick costumes—there always used to be at least one set of costumes that lighted up at the second encore.

I DON'T mean to say that I can't struggle along without the good old days—I just want to lead gently up to the fact that now a musical comedy isn't a musical comedy at all. It's either an "intimate revue," a form of entertainment in which each member of the cast gets up and does his little parlor trick and calls it an evening, or else it's a discarded farce, which the talented authors have brought up to date by writing in some music cues, introducing a few references to Our Flag, the Dolly Sisters, and the new time system, and getting a man with a good memory to do the music.

"Oh, Look!" is of the latter variety. It used to be James Montgomery's farce, "Ready Money." Now it's being produced at the Vanderbilt, and it's all full of Harry Carroll's music, and its name appears on all the prominent ash-cans in large red and white posters bearing touching testimonials from the Herald and the American. It is one of those things in which the hero owns a mine some place out West—now you know the whole story, don't you? There is always this about those stage mines: no matter how worthless they may be in the first act, you need never get all upset about them. Gold is sure to be discovered at five minutes to eleven.

I never saw so much stage money in one evening as there is in "Oh, Look!" Everybody in the cast is always waving thousand-dollarbills in the air, or tugging at their pockets in the effort to work out great rolls of money, or signing property cheques and pressing them on Harry Fox. There are flocks of stage telegrams, too,—I should say only about three less than there are in "Going Up," which still holds the Western Union record.

HARRY FOX is unquestionably the life of the party. A pleasant time is had by all while he is on the stage. I do like the way he behaves; he always makes me feel he must be just that way around the house. He can do wonderful things with a song; you fully realize that, when his first-act song, "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows," is sung in the second act by the leading lady. It's a good song, too,— if you just whistle "Good-Bye, Dear Old Bachelor Days," from the Follies before last, you'll know exactly how it goes.

There is another song, "A Typical Topical Tune," which simply drives the audience wild. They are so delirious with joy that they can hardly stand it. The man next to me, in particular, was so overcome that I thought he would have to be taken away—so much happiness really couldn't be good for him. I hate not to be one of the boys, but they just couldn't sell me that song. They did all they could to interest me in it. They encored it for an hour and twenty minutes steadily; they let me memorize all the words and they gave me every opportunity of learning the tune. But somehow, it left me cold. However, I will admit that it had it all over the Act I song, which is based on the idea that, if every woman only had a little love affair in her home, none of them would ever give a hang about voting. Somehow, this thing of making jokes about suffrage always seems to me to be in the same class with being perfectly killing about Bryan and mothers-in-law and the Ford car. Anyone can do that—the stunt lies in not doing it.

The cast works so hard that I was all tired out. Nobody stays in the same place for more than thirty seconds at a stretch, and people don't just keep quiet and pay attention while somebody else is singing; they keep interpolating remarks, or throwing in harmonies. The chorus is the most obliging, eager-to-please organization I have ever encountered. They get through a song and its accompanying calisthenics, and then, before anyone has had a chance to make a motion towards applause, there they are, right back on the stage again, doing the whole thing over just as enthusiastically as if it were the first time. It's really stimulating to see them.

I DIDN'T have much of an evening at "Toot-Toot!" I was disappointed, too, because the advertisements all spoke so highly of it. It's another of those renovated farces— it used to be "Excuse Me," in the good old days before the war. I wish they hadn't gone and called it "Toot-Toot!" When anybody asks you what you are going to see to-night and you have to reply "Toot-Toot!" it does sound so irrelevant. It has been made over by a lot of people—Edgar Allan Woolf did the book, the lyrics are by Berton Braley, and Jerome Kern wrote the music. They brought it up to date by the simple expedient of putting all the men in khaki, and letting the cheers of the audience do the rest.

You know, there's something gravely wrong with me. I have just realized it lately. I never knew I was unpatriotic before—I'm the wife of one of Our Boys, and I wasn't wild about Germans long before this war ever started. But there is something serious the matter—I simply cannot get all worked up at the sight of a company of chorus men clad in Schneider-Anderson uniforms, even though they march right up to the very footlights with a do or die expression in their eyes. If this be treason, make the most of it.

They don't let "Toot-Toot!" go with a mere line in the program about "All the men in this company have fulfilled their military obligations." No, they give the draft number, and the reason for the exemption of every man in the cast. It's a good idea, isn't it? It's a particularly good idea in "Toot-Toot!" There are frequent stretches in the evening's entertainment when one is glad to have something to read.

Louise Groody's dancing does much for everybody concerned, and "The Last Long Mile," the Plattsburg marching song, is another bright moment. Of the other songs, "If" is the only one that I sing in my bath-tub.

But I certainly don't feel that the evening was wasted at "Toot-Toot!"—which will doubtless buck up the management a great deal. The seat on my right was occupied by Mol la Bjurstedt,—-I sat next to her all evening long. I think it ought to help my backhand wonderfully.

I DON'T like to say that I have seen worse shows and more of them than any other living woman—I do hate to be boastful. I merely wish to remark that I saw "Let's Go" and "Follow the Girl" on two successive evenings. I think that will cover the case.

The title of "Let's Go" was undoubtedly suggested by the remarks of the audience after the first act. I am deeply grieved in William Rock and Frances White; I didn't think they would ever go do anything like that. I have always been one of Frances White's most ardent rooters. I admit she has much of the same sweet, shy self-effacement that distinguishes Mr. Benny Kauff, nevertheless I would rather watch her and hear her than anyone else in her line of business. But even Frances White couldn't save this thing. It was far beyond salvation. There are two things in this world that I cannot ever hope to understand. One is why people go rowing in Central Park, and the other is just what it was that made William Rock get up in front of a lot of people —mostly there on free tickets—and give an imitation of Richard Mansfield. Let's not talk about it any more.

AND there was "Follow the Girl." Only the fact that I saw "The Love Mill" last month prevents me from hailing "Follow the Girl" as the world's worst show.

Well, it's all over now anyway.