The Washington herald., 1907-12-01
About Musical Comedy.

The musical comedies continue 20 pass
before us in a seemingly endless review.
Like procession OF soldiery, the varia-
tion is only in the uniform and accouter-
ments-the direction and the step is the
same from the beginning to the end.
After eliminating from musical comedy
the futile attempts, which fall hourly by
the wayside as the procession rushes on,
those that remain-and they may usually
be summed up as successes-may, per-
haps. be divided into two classes. The
one, lacking the luster OF genius in con-
ception, and, therefore. not appealing to
the intellect. requires and is given a gilt
tering and prodigal investiture Of acces-
sories. The other being able to stand on
its literary merits, with all the deftness
Of the authors touch and the composers
best moods. sticks TO its atmosphere and
needs only an adequate setting to attract
the eye.
The attitude OF the critic to the first
named is merely one of tolerance. He
sees in II the purely frivolous side OF
the stage, where the eye Is 6azzled to
distract the brain from delving too deeply
into why's and wherefores. 1t is tolerably
easy for librettist 10 drag his charac-
ters to flower fetes. masked balls. car
nivals. and to every gilded vanity fair In
order to conceal by gorgeous inanities his
weak foundation.
With the other kind however il is diff
ferent. and hard To know where TO begin
TO praise and when TO stop. The greatest
virtue of The Dairy Maids" for in
stance. is the simplicity in which it is
garbed. On account Of the first scene
being dairy farm. a simple enough en-
vironment. no necessity arose for seven
teen changes Of costume by the chorus.
so II kept on its suitable and artistic
country garments throughout the act.
and the spectator. uncOnsciously relieved
by a placid yet beautiful picture. turned
his attention to the cleverness OF the
actors and heard them, undismayed by
garish or tawdry anachronisms of dress
How often has the spectator patiently en-
dured the sight Of choruses in tights
and other trifies. gayly prancing through
street scenes, when the natural out
come OF such a spectacle would be cell
in the police court and a fine next morn
''-N-I'NN SfNAAlAi4k 10 lcIlQ 100
strongly toward absolute realism. let us
still be thankful for the omission of these
absurdities once in while
The name or Charles Frohman is GEN
orally a guarantee OF good faith between
the manager and the public one felt
that The Dairy Maids was going 10
be good because The Little Cherub"
was good, The Catch OF the Season"
was good, The School Girl was good
and because most Of lot OF other Froh-
man musical comedies have been good
Mr.. Frohman has not been I'm the
musical comedy business 50 very long
and the first one ne backed CHANGED TO
be failure. but at the present time his
name stands for the purer vein In this
order Of entertainment, and the reason
Is not far 10 seek. His musical come
dies are most always OF English origin.
The British musical comedy is gener-
ally success as IT reaches us here. OF
course they have failures over there
possibly mediocre things that die a nat
ural death-but those are not brought to
these shores. In the realm OF the theater
II Is usually only the good that is sent
across the sea, thus reversing the good
old custom OF sentencing the bad to be
transported.