The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-03-14
THE DRAMA IN
 NEW YORK.
ssToo Many Cooks. a Clever Comedy.
tBy Louis Le Brun.)

Clever Comedy.
 Any critical person who critics for money, and who is a critic by trade. hates to come right out and say off hand and point blank and without re- servations that any play is good. Therefore let me hasten to asseverate that Frank Craven's comedy. "Too Many Cooks produced at the Thirty ninth Street Theatre, has its weak spots and it's inept lines and is a bit too coll6quialistic and ta1ky. Having thus eased my conscience may add that "Too Many Cooks is the clever est comedy of the 1914 vintage. In the first place. 1t has a catchy title, which is more than can be said of many productions aI1egedIy humorous. When you have been seated by the gentlemanly usher, and open your program, and let your eye wan der from the title to the cast of char acters. which include Alice Cook and
 Mrs. Cook, her mamma, and MT. Cook, her papa, and Louis and Emma Cook. her aunts, and Bertha and Mary Cook, her sisters and Waiter Cook, her avuncuIar relative, and Joe and Louis Cook, her brothers, you begin to req 1ize the possibilities of the piece and an anticipatory grin steals over your countenace. MT. Frank Craven, the author of .sToo Many Cooks is an
 
 ever in the world happened to think of such an ingenius- title and list of characters is utterly beyond me. A dramatic critic, with his superior in telligence and keener wit and bril- Hanter intellectuals, might easily do it, but an actor? We'll, well, wonders never cease. Moreover, so far as the program casts any illumination on the subject, MT. Cravan wrote the thing without any assistance or colla- boratfon. Perhaps he considered that too many cooks might spoil ssToo Many Cooks
 When an actor develops sufficient intelligence to write a play that gets put on you naturally expect it to be a very dramatic thing. but lacking in those delicate 1it'ry touches that would characterize a play written by, say a dramatic reviewer. This is not true of .AToo Many Cooks It is more literary than dramatic, ana t.gets
 over,' only on the strength of its witty dialogue.
 Alice Cook, the heroine, is played by Inez Hummer, and MT. Craven is his own hero, Albert Bennett, sweet Alice's betrothed. When the curtain
 stage occupied by the foundation for
 a suburban cottage, and comedy and house-construction progress together until, when the curtain goes down on the last act, the structure is com pleted. Alice Cook and her future spouse are the builders of the house, and they are assisted (?), as if so of ten the case insreal life, by the coun- sel of multitude of relatives and friends. The Cooks. of whom there are indubitab1y too many. include a loud-voiced father, an overbearing ] maternal ancestor and nother-in-law- to-be whose vocalisns are even more pronounced, and an assorted lot of other relatives, heretofore enumerat- ed, who average up pretty much the
 same as bone fide off-stag relations, and who are just chuck full of advice and ..so friendly you can't kick 'ern.' g They, with the assistance of the near bridegroorns s rich uncle and his best pal and his sweetheart's buzzum friend, manage to bungle both house building and love making in such a manner as to afford a vast amount of fun for the innocent bystanders out front The fun, however is principal ly conversational, for the rising house on the stage permits little room for action. Too many of the actors and Actresses are wooden, and constitu- tionalIy unable to extract all the fun from Mr. Craven,s lines. MT. Craven. however. is almost aa good as when \ he played Jimmy a1Iley in Bought