Los Angeles herald., 1908-05-05
THE CAST
by sIDLE LAWRENCE

A PPRECIATION of English humor
u should be considerably enhanced
AA by attendance upon when
knights Are Bold" which Francis
Wilson presents this week at the Ma
son opera house. The farce is funny
screamingly funny. Likewise 1t is
screamingly English. There's a joke
in the first act-a joke put in for the
purpose of illustrating how very de-
praved an English joke may become
that I'll confess didn't get until after
it had been diagramed.
What" asks the Hon. Mr.. Widde-
combe, Ibid Noah say when he heard
the rain pattering on the roof?"
The people on the stage gave it up.
So did most of us in the audience. Then
came the answer to the riddle.
Ark
Funny, isn't it? Do you get it? If
not just spell it "ark." and remember
the English habit with regard to as
pirates. If the diagram wasn't neces-
sary I beg your pardon. Perhaps you
know your Bow Bells, I didn't.
Funny Despite the Joke
Apart from this one joke, as I said,
had its reason, when Knights Are
. old' is as funny a farce as you will
find in a season of theater-going. Like
'"The Road to Yesterday" produced in
New York about the same time this
piece had its first presentation in Eng
land, the farce is built about a dream
in which a little party of moderns find
themselves unexpectedly transported
back many centuries into 1.-The good
old days" In the English play, how
ever, grotesquerie usurps the place of
romantic comedy. There Is, too, this
difference-the central figure in when
knights Were Bold" retains his mod
ernity throughout In Tuxedo and
prose he invades a realm of blank
verse and medieval armor and the
result makes for jollity all around.
Mr.. Wilson first comes upon the
stage in this play with that exceed
ingly disagreeable and essentially
farcial malady, a cod i'd the head. He
has been hunting through the usual
English drizzle and wet feet have had
their usual effect, unpleasantly evil
denced in quite different part OF the
mans anatomy. He sneezes and he
shifts and the audience laughs Ridic-
ulous thing, cold, and Wilson's is
the most ridiculous cold you ever saw.
"Yod Fair Mood"
The ailment fails to win sympathy
from the beauteous Lady Rowena,
whom Sir Guy de We're fondly hopes to
make his own. The young woman is
romantic. She talks much of the hero
ism, the knight errantry of the good
old days." and she has tagged Sir Guy
as the decadent scion of a glorious
race. He does his best to persuade her
that he isn't such a duffer as she
imagines, but love making, seldom i'm
pressive in any circumstance. must
necessarily lack dignity when the lover
can sigh only to "yod fair mood,
shiding dibly id the heavens" and the
Lady Rowena finally leaves her impor-
tunate and influenza stricken wooer
presumably to seek the company of Sir
Brian Ballymote, an Irish adventurer
and Sir Guys rival.
The English knight orders hot
foot bath, which he doesn't use, and
several hot whiskies and water, which
he does. Then he falls asleep and
dreams that he is back in the days of
Richard Coeur de Lion. This brings
us merrily to the second act and the
good old days. Here the other charac-
ters in the farce appear as their own
ancestors, each man in his station.
Sir Guys butler becomes his seneschal
The Lady Rowena is a novice who,
with the mother superior, flies to Sir
Guys castle for protection from Sir
Brian a marauding Irish knight. The
dean of the first act becomes a monk
The others fit into their appropriate
places in the picture, the author of
that atroc1ouS NoanS ark JOKE being
Sir Guys fool.
Through this company wanders the
form of Sir Guy in his tuxedo. He
lights an Egyptian and causes stam-
pede because as he explains it to
himself, Sir Walter Raleigh has not
vet invented smoking Then comes a
note of tragedy "My last" he says.
ssI'll have to wait seven hundred years
for another smoke"
SIR Brian besieges the castle. He and
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