New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-08-09

BY HAYWOOD BROUN.

A cynic ought to be wise. Nobody
can cherish a worthy contempt for life
until he has lived 1t inside out. Seven
Chances" was teed UP too soon. II 10
only way station in the journey from
Mother Goose to Schnietzler.
Roi Cooper Megrue's new comedy Is
4 farce. 1t is about a young man who
has TO marry in thirty-six hours In
order to inherit s12,0o0,000, OF course.
things like that don't happen, but even
when an author starts with an impos-
sible premise 1t is just as well to jog
elbows with life now and again during
the course of the story.
Megrue knows good deal about
putting play together and writes
amusing dialogue, but it Is not anus
ing enough to endear a set of charac-
ters who have not a single drop If
blood between them. More than that,
the people of "Seven Chances" never
got up gumption to go out and do things
on their own account. They "a always
waiting for suggestions from the au-
thor. Frank Craven and Carroll Nc
Comas did their best, but even they
were tied to the playwright's apron
strings.
Craven is the man who inherits the
$4,000, 900, and he has to go out and
propose to a lot of girls who all refuse
him. Later most Of them reconsider,
and still later, when 1t seems that he
has lost the fortune, they all desert
him, except one. And she is the girl
he has wanted all the time.
II is somewhat of a tax upon the
author to make his hero propose seven
times, but he serves to vary 1t by sup
plying different sorts Of girls. Natu-
rally there is the romantic girl and the
businesslike girl and the mannish girl
and the girl who is already taken. The
best of the proposals was over the
telephone, when the hero said, Hello,
Ethel, will you mary me p and then
added angrily, "Say, Central, will you
try and get that party back for me 2"
All in all, however, there was enough
sameness in the proposals TO make
them less interesting as time went on.
And, worst of all, the true love which
came at the end may have served to
thrill the heart of the hero, but it
could hardly do that for the audience.
1t was Jean Psurel, of "The Great
Lover" you may remember, who la
mented when at last he came to fall in
love with the true one, there was moth
ing new which he could say to her.
Roi Cooper Megrue did not have
great deal TO say in Seven Chances"
and so he took long time to say it.
He attempts the impossible in the first
act, which undertakes 70 show a lively
= ~ r,t in
club. Now, undoubtedly lively spirits
do gather in clubs and kid each other
back and forth right merrily, but to
the outside listener their jokes are
either dull or indecent or both. II is
a fearful task for a playwright to set
himself to reproducing the gayety OF
the group. Just on the spur of the
moment we can't think of anybody who
ever wrote a good barroom scene ex-
cept Shakespeare, and he did 1t largely
by letting Falstaff 20 the limit. Me-
grues gang with their jokes about the
fellow who is going to buy drink and
the married man who doesn't want TO
90 home and all the rest of 1t are not
very funny.
Craven was amusing for little while
in his earliest endeavors to find WIFE
on the spur of the moment. By and
by the play dragged, and unless we are
representative. it offends little, too.
1t Jared US a bit to hear "Well, send in
Lily" and we are quite sure that the
scene in which sixteen year-old girl
dressed herself up in her sisters long
dresses and offered herself as bride
was not in the best possible taste.
Next to Frank Craven and Carroll
McComas, Anne Meredith does the best
work.
"Seven Chances" is just trife, and
not such light one, either. 1t is heavy
with the rumnations of the author.