Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-04
The Foreign Stage.


Special Correspondence OF The Star
LONDON, October 25. 1905
A new manager new playwright q
new company and a new play at the Crt-
terion are all APPARENTLY successful, Jerard
Grant Allen, son OF the famous novelist
traveller and writer on popular science. took
over the management of the theater In
Piccadilly Circus, for a venture with a com
edy by W. Kingsley Tarpey. entitled Tho
Amateur Socialist" and it may have been
supposed that the result would be a nice
amateur performance to be forgotten in
a week or two. But it proved to be a
really bright, unpretentlous, effective
comedy. based on the foibles Of a rich.
kindly aristocrat, who had become infected
with all sorts of radical ideas, and who
wore red neckties and surreptitiousy adj
dressed mass meetings of striking coster-
mongerS. On the occasion which concerns
the play he was carried away by his own
eioquence, and got into trouble with the
poIlce escaping only with the help of a
young man whose name he hadn't caught
In the second act two police inspectors
smuggie themselves into the house just
as the amable reformer is giving a FASH
lonable dinner party. Surprising them to
be brother agitators he asks them to STAY
to dinner and they make a great hit with
their social prowess apologetically arrest
ing the host afterward. In the third act
we ind him in a police court, Indignant
because he has been acquitted, and de-
wise discovering that the nice young man
who had been arrested with him was the
same young man whom he had forbidden
his ward to marry on the ground that tho
youth was heir to earldom. and there-
fore, not fit to associate with the trle de-
mocracy. 1t is a one-actor play and ham
PLY, the actor was Eric Lewis whose mel
low and urbane humor never had a hetter
chance. The rest of the cast, which in
Guided Lillian Braithwaite was good too.
Lemonade Boy" the one-act play which
preceded The Amateur Socialist" for the
author is Miss Gladys Unger an American
girl Bourchier is to bring out a drama
OF hers soon, and Frohman is said to have
contracted with her for several plays. "Ths
Lemonade Boy" is only a slight episode but
1t shows plainly enough the real dramatic
instinct.
Musical comedy is dead" It is likely
that George Edwardes is sorry now that he
made that historic declaration. which has
proved quite as mistaken as did an equally
fiat-footed statement on the part of a dis
tinguished general about the finish of the
Boer war. Judging by the latest accounts
from America, there has been no interment
of musical comedy there. at all events and
so far as London is concerned the best an
swer to the Gaiety managers gloomy as
sertion is the fact that Mt no less than nine
important West End theaters musical pieces
of the lightest texture are playing to big
business. Moreover. by the irony of events
two of the playhouses mentioned are Mr..
Edwardes own, for although both THE
New Aladdin" at the Gaiety and ''See-See''
distinct departures from the doomed
form of entertainment. neither piece
achieved any special success until it had
been so transmogrified and ''popularized'
that tc describe it as anything else than
musical comedy would be to make a dis
tinction without the shadow of a differ
ence.
But the point in which Americans may
possibly be interested to some extent is that
the professional makers OF English musical
comedies are actually buster than at
any time before. and that quite lot OF
rather bright and interesting pieces are GO
ing to be the result. To begin with. evil
IDENTITY London-and that, OF course. means
America, tools in for a series of musical
pieces whose names VIII suggest localities,
for the new musical show by Paul Rubens.
who wrote Three Little Maids is called
Miss Hook of Holland" and Seymour
Hicks. always initiative. has named his new
offering Miss Bank of England. And
though. SO far one has announced a
Miss Bay of Biscay" a MIR. Straits Of
Dover" no doubt pieces thus named will
make their appearance as soon as some
librettist thinks of them.
AS far as Miss Hook of Holland is con-
cerned however. London is waiting for II
quite eagerly, for few Of the younger COM
posers can beat Rubens for tuneful melo-
dies The stage setting OF the new piece Is
likely to be novel. too, for. before setting
TO work the composer-who Is his own IL
brettist and lyrist as well-made a lengthy
motor tour through some of the N 80 dis
tant parts of Holland and brought back
with him many sketches and photographs
of the picturesque buildings and inhabi-
tants G. P. Huntley, who made so big
success in America. IS, by the way. making
his temperance In London In Miss
Hook" the first act of which is 10 be laid
in a chees market near the Zuyder Zee ana
the second In a DHch liqueur estab- -ment
on a festival day.
Then there IL 1.-The Three Kisses" the
new musical piece which Is being written
for Curzon by the numerous authors OF
THE White Chrysantfemum,' and THE
Jolly Widow" the Viennese piece which
Edwardes is going to put on at the Gaiety.