The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1912-11-13
ADJUSTMENTS
Get Rich Quick WalIingford''


The sort of play that warns the cookies
of the heart is the sort of play that is
longest remembered and Rich Quick
Wallingford' is that kind of play. 1t is
genuinely American, rich in quaint char
acter types, breezy in action and bulb
bling over with the choicest humor that
the combined efforts of George Randolph
Chester, creator of the Wallingford of
fiction and George NJ Cohan, who put
Wallingford on the stage could provide
And Mr.. Cohan has gone further. He
has made Wallingford a higher type of
man, one more lovable than his prototype
In Mr.. Chesters stories
The Wallingford seen on the stage at
the Jefferson last night is a fascinating
young man who has the latent good de-
veloped in him by his love affair with
pretty stenographer A happy train Of
circumstances on which Wallingford and
his partner "Blaekle" Daw, had little
counted when they schemed to trim
the "boobs' of Battlesburg, Iowa, and
make a quick getaway" enables them
to make fortune legitimatey. They
stay in Battlesburg, which is soon trans
formed by their enterprise into one of
the Largest manufacturing towns in the
middle west" with a milionaires' club
of forty members, fine hotels, theatres,
taxicabs, trolley cars and all modern
luxuries. They builded better than they
knew and the rise of Battlesburg from
little Jay" town, sunk in sloth, to
fine busting city is like a story out
of fairyland.
Wallingford and Daw marry the girls
who first aroused in them desire to
reform, and are so successful as honest
men that they win the unstinted admira-
ton of their old friend, Tom Donahue,
of the Pinkerton detective agency, who
comes to visit them in their new life.
The Introduction of the detective in the
last act was happy thought on the part
of the playwright, for it enabled him to
present the magnates OF Battlesburg and
their ladies in all their opulence, in two
short years metamorphosed from village
pumpkins into people who are decidedly
up-to-date
The play is capital one, just the sort
of play that we can chuekle over and
enjoy to the full with a little moral les
son neatly presented for our edifcation
in the last act, when we are told how
much happier a man can be when he is
honest than when ne is swindler the
very sensible conclusion being reached by
Wallingford and Daw jointly that set
Ting down and settling up were the two
best things they ever did
The humor of the piece is extremely
entertaining, the character drawing ex-
cellent and the general atmosphere of the
play carries conviction. For the time be-
ing we are transported to Battesburg
where we are permitted to witness the
wonders wrought there by the master
hand of j. Rufus Waliingford. It is all
quite realistic and there is feeling of
general satisfaction when the curtain is
raised for the last act. discovering Bat
tlesburg at night in all the splendor Of
its new era as viewed from the lawn
of Walingford's home. where his we'd
ding anniversary is being celebrated.
The company this season is in the main
the same capable organization that de-
lighted theatregoers at the Jefferson thea
tire last season. John Webster, hand
some and suave as ever, still plays Wal
lngford in capital style, Swallowed by
his faithful japanese valet. Alice Claire
Elliott, who is pretty enough and dainty
enough to be a second edition of Billie
Burke made the part of Fanny Jasper
quietly irresistible. 1t was no wonder
that Waingford decided to reform. Jo-
seph Sweeney gave clean cut presenta-
ton of Horace Daw, while James J. Null