Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-11-06
INNABELLE A MINK
OF DELIGHTFUL WIT
Heroine of "Good Gracious,
Annabelle" Charms With Art
fitness and Artlessness
HAS vERvE-AND NERVE

ooop GRACIOUS ANNABELLE. Comedy, by
clare RUNNER. Prssented py AInh AIIhur 1dpes 11op
Sins Scenes by Robert Edmupd Jones'
,oSn Rawson. a western mine owner r. great great ..
o,.ss. wssl'hw wimbledon. who has inherited his
ui,Is t,istMSs tMSsrShIson' whose Income Is arge;6gt
,,S,I,cm HnceT'Seios Seioosing lawyer THOMAS Keogh
wilbur Jennings an huleent ras HsrTy sotbern
,y-.s weatherby. whose father can no longer g.
pay hli IuGsnte. Si!lS George wmbiedon'a man.
MSknS Mss page boy. Mac Ma, MA,eop&6eT Der
TisSSSSaSIIi elfTff fef9h who has husband some
YhsTs an artist in distress. Flo 1tS' Morrison %
GGTsndoyn Morley, poor girl at The mercy OF
hsr rieha riraaT paTemIR cooR at Wimbledon May Vokes
Al i-interior Of fashionable New YORK
h0gjst 0got 1.-THE, servants, ball at wimbledon's
Ict ifIEThe lodge garden.
Take hint from THE Great Divide"
motif from "She Stoops to Conquer" and
,be basic situation from Come out of the
xitcben,o and eliminatepthe serious drama
and the melodrama of the first and the high
eomedy and saccharinity respectively Of the
others. and you have the ground plan of
nGood Gracious Annabelle." Just as Steve
Gbent took vehement possession of Ruth
Iordan i'm William Vaughn Moody's vlrile
and genuinely American play. so a crude,
unlettered Westerner, John Rawson. vio-
iantly marries the heroine of the Hummer
comedy. Just as the bewitching and bewil-
daring Kate Hardcastle OF Goldsmith
estoops" to a servile position to win does
Annabele assume a cap and apron. And
mai as in "Come out of the Kitchen does
the heroine haul along a trio of others into
pseudo-service.
Else there would be no plot not even the
obvious and slender material which reveals
the extravagant Annabelle three months
ahead OF her allowance, with nowhere to go
and nobody to borrow from, taking along
her three mpecunious friends to 'jobs" on
a Long Island estate partly to have some-
where to go, partly to escape service of a
process as correspondent in divorce action
and partly to recover possession of some
shares Of stock which give control of the
management of copper mine. OF course,
the rich western mine owner to whom her
heart cleaves from the moment she first
sees him in the peacock alley of n Gotham
hotel, is the subsequently lterate and
opulent rough-handed miner who had forced
her into marriage and then released her,
touched by her terror. She does not know
his Identity, but he knows hers and the
audience knows that of both as the plot is
not at all subtle. But the piece is not one
Of plot nor indeed one Of characterization
or psychology. II is one of incongruous
situations, unexpected turns and colloca-
tlons of incident and for the most part scn-
tillant dialogue. II veers from farce to
comedy with the shifting breezes of the
authors sparkling epigrams and smart
speeches. Little variation or individuality
Of dialogue Is there to dfferentiate the per-
sonalities of the speakers, but the rapid
FIRE Of their colloquy is too quickly volleyed
to give room for the charge of monotony.
Action and dialogue drag a bit at first then
a sudden mounting OF interest in speech
and incidents lifts the audience to heights
Of sheer entertainment on the level of
which It Is kept till the final curtain fall.
That is all Good Gracious, Annabelle' is
--an entertainment, decidedly pleasing
one, full Of laughs and minus offensiveness
even where the situations are a bit delicate
And 1t Is made the more delectably laugh
making through the assemblage of very
well chosen cast--and none of your slim
threeroles.and.a- casts of recent So
ciety comedies or farces The cast Is as
large as that of musical comedy, less
the chorus but including the specalities
Its members are diverting and resourceful
entertainers and they act with clever team
work Lola Fisher cast as the heroine, is
delicious mink Of wit and wiles and plays
with a nicety of touch and essential humor
that put across" as comedy much that
would fall fiat from an actress less supe-
rorly endowed. May Vokes is the tradi-
tonal scream" in one of her typical
"slavey' roles, full of her familiar drol-
iery. Harry Sothern as a penniless expo
nent of vers libre and Edwin Nicander as
gentlemanly "souse' are capital
w r. NJ