The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1907-01-06
NEW YEAR OFFERINGS
IN NEW YORK THEATRES
Several New Plays Presented to Public-Farce Comedy
Favorite Form Of Entertainment.

NEW YORK. January 1.-Two wholly
5arcicaI plays that whitfield into New York
on New Years Eve had realistic EFF
feotso that they didn't need. The storm
az sea is the most remarkable sight IN
.'Brewstcr's Millions and the sudden
shower in Caught In the KAN are
among the most widely discussed OF re-
cent stage spectaces yet they contribute
nothing to the fun of the plays in which
they figure. The play which William
Collier and Grant Stewart have written
for Collier TO star-act in. is so incohse-
quential, dramatically that 1t might be
dismissed in n Contemptuous paragraph
yet Caught in. the Rain probably VIII
bring in more money, by merely tickling
more people than either of tho bfamS
comedies which Richard Harding Davis
and Augustus Thomas provided for him.
This farce happened in this way: Collier
was playing across America on the route
10 Australia In his company was Grant
Stewart not much of an actor, but
farile writer of humorous sketches. IN
Denver they saw n girl caught by
sudden shower. She didn't nina the
rain much, as an awning gave shelter,
and she was n duck of n girl anyway;
ror did the dangerous lighntng scare
her for wasn't she accustomed to elec.
arical illumination? But with Illogical
femininity. She was terrified by the R3t.H-
less thunder a Young man came along.
Perhaps ii was one of the actors, but
probably 1t was not for he was inclined
TO be bnshful, and run away, when the
eirl-spot-lit. like stage heroine by
vivid flash of lightning, and made an
emotional actress by a deafening clap OF
fhuuder-sezed upon the stranger and
implored him to save her.
There's the play we've been talking
about" said Collier to Stewart. or mebbe
it was Stewart said 1t to Collier for /
am guessing at the details. But there
was the start and title of Caught In
the Rain" The incident is set forth, with
street commotion hurried or halted by
the shower: the natural phenomena imi-
tated finely: real water dripping from
the front sky-border. and the encounter
of Willie Collier and Nanette Comstock
taking place with humid illusion.
The comedy which thus catches on In
rain is for the rest q matter of verbal
snartness. Collier and Stewart were born
in the same period as Davis and Thom1s
hut not In the same world of dramatic
genius However, they face audiences
year in and year out, as the othe'
don't, and like monologusts In Naude-
willie. they know how to get the laughs.
So tho acquaintance of the fellow and
the girl runs on from the meeting by
chance to a betrothal, with no pnrticu-
lars worth reading, but with conanu-
Gus enterta inment of pun, repartee ana
other fun of kinds which Collier can
deliver with great facility-jGgale AM
balance with great facility. He delVefs
the goods-that is to say, himself; and
1yhirh tho nIhlic DllNE
with all the eagerness of shoppers at a
bargain sale.
ssBrewster's Millions" Dra1natized
1t took five authors and as many more
Intimately interested advisers to make
play out of the vastly popular novel OF
aBrewster's Millions" Frederick Thomp-
son saw at the first reading of George
Barr McCutcheon's story OF a man who
had to spend every cent of a million dol
lars in one year in order to inherit
seven times that sum, an opportunity for
an extraordinary presentation of yacht
In a storm, and set TO work to build a
play around it. Finding that little out
OF his line, he employed q we'll known
American dramatist to do the job, and
though his name does not figure on the
program, it is fair to assume that some
of his work appears on the stage. The
making of the farce is credited wholly
TO Winchell Smith and Byron Ongley,
rather inconspicuous actors who are new
at play-writing. Just how much of the
piece is theirs is not so much to the
point as the fact that any share in the
making of play so merriy diyertlng
is credtable.
The farce that the storm at sea inter-
rlpts just at the moment when its novel
scheme seems likely to become tedious
from repetition, exhausts every possible
twist to the reckless spending of a mill
lion dollars, and, with its sole deliberate
purpose of causing laughter, incidentally
saurtzes the frenzied finance spirit of
the age. And with all its wild extraxa-
ganoe of idea itemalnEsins a sembance
of plausiblity.' That is one of the good
reasons why the play is destined to pro-
longed popularity. When the whimsical