"Lhude Sing Cuccu"

Broadway's Spring Blossoms Have a Way of Appearing a Little Autumnatically

MARC CONNELLY

IF you will only agree with me that almost everyone connected with theatrical Broadway, and with dramatic productions, in general, is crazy, we can sail blithely into a discussion of the most fixed and permanent of Broadway's delusions; namely, the belief that April comes to us along about the middle of August, and that May occurs in that period which calendars so ridiculously speak of as October.

Grant me that, and you may take my word for it that—quoting the earliest of English spring poets, as I once quoted him—in English Poetry V, 10 to 11—"Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cuccu".

There is always a bursting of Spring blossoms, during October, in those dancing electric gardens on the tops of the buildings along Broadway: which gardens have, for several months, brought forth only such hardy perennials as "William Fox's greatest love story ", " The fastest growing cigarette in the United States", and 11 Just a real good car".

There is now, as we said, all around Longacre Square, a vernal freshness in the voices of the night-blooming traffic cops and midnight taxi-drivers. New plays are bursting into flower all about us. Under the warm rays of pilot lights, during the afternoons—in theaters where there are no matinees—new plays are slowly budding. Mr. Cain, the theatrical scenery mortician, is dancing with the joy of returning life, as he receives the season's first raspberries. New bulbs have appeared in Mr. Wrigley's nursery on top of the Putnam building, and his happy wriggly elves are cavorting with a lightness befitting the general mood.

NOW, suppose that my little listeners climb here at the corner of Forty-second Street and Broadway, not far from the sombre A1 Woods. Let us sit in the bus and look about and see what lovely things old Mother Nature is ushering in.

Upseedaisy! Now, please don't worry about the bus's starting, for sometimes, in the dead of night, I've seen buses just like this one coming back from Chinatown, but no one living has ever seen one actually leave this corner on its way thither.

Now, what is the first sign of Spring that we see? George M. Cohan's modest little advertisements about himself in that poster for Two Fellows and a Girl? Yes, that's one sign, but I meant something else. Use your eyes, my dears. Hurrah! Now you've found it!

It is indeed the window of that TheaterTicket Agency across the street, there on Broadway. Notice those little things in the window? They are the various mechanical dodges which the managers are using this year to advertise their new productions. See the scores of little dolls that represent characters from the plays which are now running? See the way some of them dance and do the oddest tricks? See that perfect reproduction of an old-time saloon, with a bartender serving a drink and the customer drinking it? See the man at the little table curing a bad cold? See the man at the free lunch counter having something to eat? And see the little policeman open that back window and drain a Workingman's Special? No, Ravenhair, that is not the actual production of The Good Old Days. It is only an advertisement of that popular play.

In previous springtimes, the managers used to feel that they could capture anyone's interest if they persuaded ticket brokers to put cards in their windows that read:

MOOS'S 24TH STREET THEATER Human Hearts

" SUCCESS "—Herald

But theatrical floriculture has improved since then. Perhaps Mr. Morris Gest did not actually create a new floriculture with his Chauve Souris wax figurines, but he certainly forced the growths. Last year, you may remember, he put little dolls that looked like Balieff, and Katinka, and the Wooden Soldiers, in every ticket-agency window. The Tired Business Children stopped and became fascinated; then they went in and bought tickets for the Chauve Souris. The result has been that when a theatrical manager now contemplates a production, he first calls in all the sculptors, doll designers, novelty manufacturers and electrical engineers in New York to go over the script with him before rehearsals are actually begun.

"Good morning", says the manager. "I think I've got a pretty good show in this manuscript. What shall we do about it?"

"Well", says the president of the New Era Mechanical Device Co., "I see it's called Up She Goes. What do you say about having some real little elevators? I'll get Paul Manship, or someone, to make some figures that'll look like Frank Case, your leading man, and others to look like Margaret Lorraine, your leading lady. Case can pose, in the model, as the elevator boy, and Miss Lorraine can be a passenger. Then I'll get a phonograph attachment that'll work when the elevator moves. Case'll say, 'Name your pleasure', and Lorraine'll say, 'Third, out.' "

"Will she actually get in and out ot the elevator?" "Sure, she will. We'll have little landings, like, that she can step onto, and light a cigarette, and talk to soniebody she meets there."

THAT'S swell! I'll have the author over to your studio to talk about changing some of the lines to fit the mechanical ad. I hope Le Maire and Jessel don't grab the corner I'm after in the McBride window. I hear they've got a real subway train they want to show in that window."

That is the sort of talk going on in the office building where you see little tufts of Corona smoke floating lazily out of a window into the sunshine. It is only one of a dozen signs that one sees in October, which go to prove that spring is here and that life is beginning anew on Broadway.

The hours of the day on Broadway are also twisted into a curious seasonal confusion. Morning, for instance, always occurs at seven o'clock in the evening. At about that time the New York Edison Company turns on the sun and, within an hour or so, everyone is up and about. Let us say that the clocks are now pointing to 8:30 in the evening. If my little companions will observe, the district around us is now a vast apiary, and hundreds and hundreds of drones, workers and queens are already out of bed and scurrying hither and thither. If I know my Fabre at all, and I certainly do not, a good many of the busiest workers are dashing around like so many critics bound for opening performances. In fact, Fabre or no Fabre, they are critics, and the openings they are going to investigate had better be a lot better than those we've seen thus far this season, if it is going to be any kind of a theatrical year at all.

Except for thfe Marionette Players and Alexander Woollcott's goatee, there has been absolutely no spring novelty in the theatrical world of New York, unless it is the way W. C. Fields wears his mustache in Madge Kennedy's new play, Poppy. The mustache seems to hang from the tip of his nose, about a mile from his upper lip. When I first saw it, it struck me as the funniest thing in the world, next to Fields himself. Perhaps something funnier will come along later, but I doubt it. But there I go, breaking into dramatic criticism again. After all, my job here is merely to be an observer of life, not a profound critic of the theater.

TO sum things up, it seems perfectly safe to A say that Broadway is burgeoning. The much heralded "Greater Movie Season", which was apparently celebrated in New York only by the display of automobile-size pennants bearing the words "Greater Movie Season" over the fronts of the Rialto and the Rivoli theaters, is over at last. The man who used to stand in Broadway doorways, of an evening, selling The Matrimonial Gazette now offers The Birth Control Review instead. He now has a competitor in the field of specialized journalism, whose place of business is the fire-plug opposite the Times Building. The newcomer sells an atheist weekly.

Of course, it is still an unsettled problem as to what the favorite shade in taxicabs will be this winter—we mean summer. Nature couldn't possibly offer a greater delirium of color and form than has already sprung up, in the form of taxis, during the past few months. One man apparently whittles all the bodies, but when they reach Times Square everybody, from Maxfield Parrish to the Wiener Werkstaette, seems to take a hand in the job of coloring them. Last spring, it looked as if evolution had naturally eliminated every color except the most potent, orange.

At one time, there was something like fiftytwo brands of yellow taxicabs. Then somebody decided that, if one of the cars were wrecked, it would be pleasant to play checkers on its tonneau until help could come. So we now have fifty-two brands of checker cabs, also.

Anyway, the New York streets are crowded, and life is a little gayer, and things are booming along at ? great rate. It is now November— the theatrical June—and people are able to get across Broadway after all, and pack the movie theaters, and develop rose colds.

In the meantime, dear children, we must get off this bus. It is apparently going to start for Chinatown after all.