New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-19
Bit by Bit Lew Fields Re-
members the Time
to Choke.
GABY DESLYS TO
APPEAR HERE SOON
Strange Case of Miss June Keith,
of the Moving Picture
World, Who Cannot Wink.
By HAYWOOD BROUN.

Joe Weber is happy now. for one oy
one the old familiar bruises are re-
turning. The fingers Of Lew Fields
clutching at his throat revive mem
cries. Mike and Meyer are together
again, and will be for the rest OF the
season.
The sceptre Of Weber and. Fields
was and is the slapstick. Theirs might
be called the comedy Of contact, and
they are funny now just as they Al
WAYS were, because the comedy OF con
tact has come down from the ages. It
matters little whether a man is beaten
over the head with bladder for an
audience OF e-Elizabethan days or
whether Fields pounds Weber's waist
coat. The spirit is the same. The fun
of Weber and Fields does not stale. be-
cause il is elemental.
The two men play their famous game
of pool in their act at the Palace The
atre this week. Devised almost thirty
years ago, the bit of foolery is fresh.
Few slices Of American drama Of such
an age could be revived to-day without
creaking at TIE hinges. Such is the ad-
vantage of the spoken drama over that
which is written. The pool scene may
have been put on paper at some time
or other. but that was mere form. II
has always lived and grown with the
| playing.
To print the fun of Weber and Fields
| is to kill it. We quote from THE
American" Of last Sunday, which re-
produced the dialogue:
meyer you don't shoot once
more unless you name the ball.
"Mike-Name him? All right
name him Philip"
Like that, in black and white, the
line is not funny, but it is when Weber
says it. Of course, the printed line
! lacks the dialect Of Weber and Fields
but it is difficult to say just how i'm
portant that is. The two comedians
| delved into many dialects before they
selected the German. In their early
vaudeville career they did much with
Irish and with negro dialect. Just how
far they would have gone with one OF
| these mediums instead of their present
! is hard to say.
| OF course. the Weber and Fields
I language is not really German dialect
| That is, from the days of Steuben to
| Viereck, no immigrant from the Fa-
/ therland talked in any way remotely
comedians. The dialect is all their
own
Gust in playing" said Mr.. Fields
Yesterday, 1--WE remember bits of bus
! mess which we may not have used for
twenty years. It will come to me all
of a sudden that after some particular
/ line | used to choke Weber, and as
soon as | do choke him he remembers
it, too"
For reasons which are eternal the
stage will always have its Webers ana
its Fields. For reasons which are also
very ancient the stage will require for
many years to come its Gabys. Mile.
Deslys made a contract yesterday with
Charles Dillingham; providing for her
appearance in this country in Novem-
ber
Gaby is in London and her signature
came over the cable with the war news.
She has been playing in Barrie's Rosy
Rapture" Her New York appearance
will be in a midwinter review at one
of the big Broadway theatres. The
piece will be called BLOW Your Horn"
Harry B. Smith has written the book,
and the music is now being composed
by Irving Berlin.
We like the drama so far as we have
gone, but it is ever so different from
baseball. In the Office of the National
League, lust between the picture of
Hans Wagner shaking hands with Pres
ident Taft and the portrait of Governor
Tener, there hangs a framed motto.
take nothing for granted in base
ball" it says. This is not the motto
of the drama.
The drama has succeeded in eliminat-
ing many of the uncertainties which
harass baseball. Nobody can tell how
a game will end until the ninth inning,
but the least experienced theatregoer
can predict the end of the play pretty
accurately just as soon as the hero has
taken one long, lingering glance at the
heroine.
But, best of all, the drama is in
structive. Just from the mail of a few