The sun., 1918-12-31
MELTING OF MOLLY
HAS BRIGHT LINES
New Musical Play Centres
Around Her Efforts to
Become Thin.
ITS TUNES ARE PLEASING
Miss Isabelle Lowe Is in Title
ROle-Piece Produced
at Broadhurst.

There Is something intrinsioally funny
about the efforts OF fat people 20 grow
thin. One recalls without difilculty the
perfectly heroic struggles OF an ex-Pres-
ldent toward the sylphlke ngure of his
dreams and the happy pride with which
he announced 20 two hemispheres the
fact that he had fallen away 20 q mere
three hundred and something. The idea
indeed has always been attractive to
play makers and It must be good. be-
cause they have employed 1t % often.
II Is the central notion OF the new
piece shown last night at the Broad
hurst Theatre by the Shuberts. a musi-
cal comedy entitled The Melting of
Molly" A good many cooks have had
a hand in tho stewing of this broth
Maria Thompson Davies having written
the book. from which Edgar Smith made
the musical adaptation. for which Sig
mund Romberg wrote the music, and for
which Cyrus Wood essayed the lyrics.
Even the Bobbs-Merrill Company
seems to have had q hand in it, but one
wonders who was responsible for the
nothing less than inspired furnishings
OF the stage.
Medley OF Furniture.
Who indeed was so incomparably
gifted as to combine in one setting
early English. Renaissance and late
Riverside drive furniture. all gorgeously
even madly illuminated by no less than
twenty-three colors and shades OF colors
Whose psjamss. ono might ask hang
so gracefully from the mantelpiece OF
lrox mia
mystery, even though the programme
states that the piece was produced under
the personal direction OF J. J. Shubert
At all events. as the eye betrays the
eye or her aesthetic lover who had gone
charming music 70 the fearful and won
derful tumble OF periods and bedazzle-
ment of hues. memory reverts with in
creased respect TO the late Melville Ellis
rare artist in this business OF graceful
harmonious decoration and costuming.
Molly. poor dear. was too fat for the
eye OF her esthetic lover who had gone
to London and was rolling in gold. Well
she knew. poor girl. that there would
be no marriage bells for her when the
fussy Alfred returned and got one look
at her plumpness But to her and the
other proud but INDECENT Carters-they
owed the whole neighborhood. father
having been much too loose with his
Noney--tnere comes as star boarder n
lover OF MoiIys past, one whose business
II Is TO rescue damsels in the distress of
embonpoint. You guess the rest.
Molly Trimmed Down.
NJ. le Prince de Talleyrand, had he
lived In our day. might have said that
musical comedies, not conversation, were
designed 70 conceal thought-but surely
one may divine that Molly thinned
down, thought not for the absent Alfred
The new piece has considerable of the
qualities necessary TO success The
music is quite pleasing. There are bright
lines here and there. though not too
many to produce a sensation of safety
Miss Isabelle Lowe, as Molly. seizes
some moments when she is distinctly
agreeable. Charles Purcell. as Doctor
Moore. works with the necessary pep
and there are others in the cast, notably
an incredibly slim. long legged girl
named Gloria Goodwin, that rather take
the eye.
II something is done toward untang-
ling the furniture tumble. toward re-
storing TO a mournful rainbow n few OF
the colors so ruthlessly snatched from
II. why, the piece may have luck. All
the world, even New York, Is especially
amiable as this year OF grace draws TO
close.