The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1914-12-16
Dolly Goes to See "Neptunes Gdrden and
Tries to Solve Riddle About the Diving Affair
By DoIAY pALRYMpLE


Believe me, with the Thermometer at
some umpty-ump degrees below zero and
the ground snow-dotted here and there.
and everybody shivering and shifting
with the cold, 1t requires some nerve to
be .two-a-day'' diver and disport
oneself in the misty green water of per-
fectIy good tank round at the Lyric, as
the statues 81 in "Neptune's Garden" are
doing this week.
| B-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rrrr
! 1t makes the cold chills and goose
flesh play havoc with my little self when
think of it,
| When | went to see the marvellous An
nette Kelerman pictures, "Neptune's
Daughter" sometime ago, had the Jim
mics for a month afterward thinking
about the beauteous Annette diving and
LAYING and frothing and frisking about in
the waters of Bermuda, and that was only
a movie"
Now in '.Neptune's Garden" which Is
| first cousin once removed to "Neptune's
Daughter" saw the same sort of fir
tatious water sprites basking about, div
| ing and splashing and swimming and leap
ing only they are real"
shapely, comely girls, clad In zee alto
gether,' as the Frenchman says, are
grouped about the stage in graceful
pose when the scene opens upon "Nep-
tunes Garden,
/ In fact, these pretty creatures whom
a breath of wind would undress, recall
the little verse which tells us that
There was young sculptor named Phid-
las
Who sometimes did things that were
hideous
He made Aphrodite
Without any 'nightie
And shocked the overfastidious!"
But the difference between the diving
girls in "Neptune's Garden" and Aphro-
dite of the verse is that there's nothing
shocking at all about them; in fact. when
they emerge from the water they look like
silver fish, sparkling, dazzling, snowy
white, although clad merely like Annette
kellerman, in er-er-''union suit" or to
| be more polite, I suppose I should say
tights"
| The thing that puzzled me all the time 1
was looking at the show, because I'm
fiom Missouri, and have to be shown. was
what became of the divers after they went
in the water.
| 1 racked my brain for an answer.
IL there was an opening in the tank
under the stage, a subterranean passage
for them to get out, then all the water
| would 80, too
so, "nixey' for that proposition.
There couldn't be an Aquatic dressing
room for the divers to change their
clothes in, for the audience can plainly
| see that the tank is all there. although
a lot of people imagine that the mirror
used is to give an ''optical Illusion" but
it isn't.
So the question is, How do thew
do 1t?
What becomes of the girls after thew
dive in the tank?
After the show I went around to 600
with my perfectly good little "peepers"
4 IL the tank was 'sho' num-" and IL il
i ntafned real water
There it was-a real, rightly tank
10 feet long, 10 feet wide and Z feet
deep.
A big athlete '1ife saver, is right
there all the time to save my
c-h-e-e-i-l-d" If anything happens
on, it's all true to life and there is
no clap trap about any of It,
Another thing that unsettled my mind
was trying to figure out which one of
the statues" wasn't a perfect lady
There Is one, you know-the one that
stands on the left hand side with the
basket in her hand-and that you look
for every minute to dive like the rest
at the sound of the vox humana-but
she doesn't.
was very much taken up with her
and punched her face when | went be-
hind the scenes just to convince myself
! that l wasn't fooled about that
Really the whole setting-the lovely
orchid colored lights, land by the way
while I was standing on the stage a
man was let down from the ceiling in
the swing that brings the water
nymphs from the tank-he'd been up
there manipulating the lights-and
that's how those pretty effects are
made-and again wondered)-every-
thing is artistic.
l In fact the whole show is sort of a