The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-11-19
A PLOT TOO OLD.
"Bird Centre" Could Not Sur.
ViVe on Musty Joke.
The Foundation Trembled and
the Piece Collapsed.
THE SUNKEN WHISKY.
Farmer Bored aWeIIand Tapped
a Keg.
Paid Off Mortgage Selling the
Fire Water.
THE SUNKEN WHISKY.

Dromio writing from New York
says:
The making Of plays from romantic
novels was followed by the making OF
plays from comicaI pictures, and there
fore Bird Centre" came out of he
cartoons of ohm T. McCutcheon- His
book of character drawings from Hi
nois village life, and the accompanying
tabloid narratives written in the man.
ner of the rural newspaper reporter.
probably have struck you as good. But
you will never know how bad he play
is, for I can't undertake to give the
particulars, and the farce itself is to
end its existence with the week. Glen
Marlborough, son of Laura Don and
grandson-in-law of Joseph Jefferson,
is a clever stage humorist, and Julian
Mitchell, nephew of Maggie Mitchell
stage director. They thought they
could make a rollicky, jollisome show
with h McCutcheon materials. But
they could not. The creature with
three parents was porn feeble in Chi
Gag and, after a month OF nursing
and doctorinS, was brought into New
York to die. Just before its christen-
ing here one of itS-legSI mean one or
its acts-was cut of. That is a fact.
Only two hours before the opening per-
Torrance the surgeon Mr.. Mitchell,
decided to omit the first act entire and
begin with the second. No doubt that
was beneficial to the extent of short
ening the action to two hours, but the
audience wasn't willing to give up even
that time to it and began to diSperSe
before it was over
The plot of Bird Centre was not
provided by McCutcheOn. nor invented
by Marlborough and Mitchell. but was
amplified from a joke that has been
cracked in so many farceS that it
wouldn't seem possible to stick the
pieces together again. 1t is the break
ing of a bottle of whisky in a water
cooler En that all Whn drink there
from get drunk. In it's latest dram
atized form a Mississippi steamboat
sank many years g with a cargo of
brandy; a subsequent change in the
course of the river left this treasure
buried under a farmyard; by chance
in boring a we'll one of the hidden
casks was punctured, and from the
wealth thus discovered the bankrupt
farmer paid off the mortgage on the
old homestead, thus Circumventing his
skinhint enemy's scheme of vengeance.
That seems like a merry variant of the
familiar find OF precious ore on a
mOrtgaged farm. And why are net the
six persons who get booty on the fire
water from that pump six times as
funny as a single one has been time
and time again2 I can't tell, nor can
MacDonough and Mitchell. If they
could, then they would know how to
make folks laugh, as they expected to,
at the Staid country women who got
hilarious al the brandy well.
BY the way. n of the actresses in
that feminized and triplified Toodles
scene. on the western tour. was Estelle
Mortimer, known throughout the land
for many and many a year, first for
her handsome heroines, next for her
dignifed matronS, and finally for her
eccentric characterizations. Well. Mrs.
Mortimer got drunk in jolly mimicry
in Bird Centre" and the next morn
ing grim death took her out of the role.
/ thought of her while watching her
successor in the scene, and wondered
If her two survivors could keep her
out of their minds.