Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1910-12-13
A TICKLING FARCE
"Seven Days A Laugh PrOvOker
For Chronic, Acute And
Occasional Theatre GOerS
CONVULSES THE AUDIENCE
A Side.SpIitting Comedy, That Barely Es.
capes Farce, Draws Record Break.
ing Audience OF The Season

lux huutCH6E vi INC SGdsUu
Laugh and the world laughs with
you" and all the world last night
was the Annapolis audience at the
Colonial Theatre. Everybody laugh
ed with everybody else, and every
body who was anybody was there.
1t was Mansger Falkner's star
night of the season, and a record
breaker performance. For the first
time in its history, men and women
were lined up at the box office the
line extending from the foyer en-
trance to the box office window.
The play was Seven Days" and it
told the story of number of people,
who were more or less at cross pur-
poses and were quarantined in n
house for a week.
The situations are screaminely ri
diculous and persons in the audience
last night, who were never seen to
laugh at anything before, laughed at
the funny lines and stage "busi-
ness in this farce comedy that is
the liveliest performance of com
edy type that has appeared here fer
some time. The comedy escapes be
ing regular farce by mere hair )
breadth. There is some horseplay,
but not what is termed in theatre
vernacular "slapstick" comedy.
A great deal of brilliant dialogue
and really sparkling fun is woven
about the story written by Mary
Reinhart and Avery Hopwood, who
are responsible for "Seven Days. :"
Perhaps the funniest part of the play
is that one character, the burglar,
is on the stage from the first mo-
ment until the last, and none of
the other characters knows it. The
plot is improbable, but by no
means Impossible. The story of the
play is really entertaining and inge.
nious, and with all its lightness and
brightness there are touches Of real
sentiment.
A young couple who are separated
still love each other, and a girl
who, to save a Situation agrees to
pose at dinner as the mans wife,
is UNEXPECTEDLY confronted by her
affianced husband, who believes she
has been married to another in his
absence. Of course all ends hap.
PLY after a week of the drollest
complications ever woven into COM
edy, and in the entire three acts of
whirlwind merriment there isn't a
word to which the most squeamjsh
could object.
4 Think of man and his divorced
wife, and girl who is pretending to
be his wife, and man who is in love
with the pretended wife, and a rich
spinster aunt who thinks they are
man and wife, and a real husband
and wife, burglar and a policeman,
being shut in a house for a week,
with a quarantine guard watching to
see that nobody gets out or in, the
servants fled, and no communication
with the outside world except by tel
ephone. That one week in quarantine
makes the clever comedy "Seven
Days"
There is an avalanche of fun from
start to finish. 1t is a real, live
rollicking fun from beginning to end.
The company WAS the original one,
direct from Ford's, Baltimore, de-
spite the opinion expressed that it
was not. The part of James Wilson,
the husband, is played by Willard
James; that of Mr. Brown by James
Manley, who probably gives the
cleverest piece of aCting; that of
his wife is also we'll done by Harriet
Worthington. Mr.. S. Lyons is the
Tom Harbeson and Thomas j. Nc
Mahon happily conceived the part
of the Tammany cop"
Aunt Selma is well done by Ida
Waterman, but Helen Collinan rather
overdoes the part as Kit" Claire
Granville takes the part of the eek
wife" of Wilson. The silent character
of the burglar is played with con-
siderable skill by Fred Cousins.
The settings are good and show the
living room, kitchen and roof of a
modern New York house and the idea
was well carried out from a scenic
viewpoint. All in all the play is
above par and furnishes thorough
ly enjoyable evenings entertain
ment.