New-York tribune., 1919-12-04
Clifton Crawford Gives De-
lightful Performance and
Receives Excellent Aid
From June Walker
THE CAST
By Haywood Broun

My Lady Friends" the new farce
at the Comedy, came to town rather
quietly and furnished something Of a
surprise last night, when it proved to
be highly amusing entertainment.
Emil Nyltray and Frank Mandel, the
authors of the new piece. have hit upon
an idea of true comedy pretensions
and created central character who is
plausible as we'll as engaging Then,
after thinking up moderately conven-
tlonai but amusing plot, they have
added number of new and excellent
Jokes. Of course, these are spread
around among the old ones. But some
OF the new jokes were so excellent
that they made the audience laugh RIGHT
on through the next line about Tren-
ton or about ladies stockings being ex-
penslve, but, of course, they come
nigh, and all that sort of nonsense,
On the other hand, there were such
bright moments as the complaint of
the husband whose wife always wanted
to 60 to the movies that in five wears
OF married life he had seen Bill Hart
ride 100000 miles.
The hero's entire case against his
wife lay in the fact that She would
save money. Here he had gone and
made three quarters of a million dol
lars in selling Bibles and she would
not give him the pleasure of wasting
cent. Norah and Gwendolyn and
julia were different, and although Mr..
SMITHS attentions were entirely inno-
cent in helping them along with their
ambitions to be artists and writer's
and what not, he did get himself into
highly compromising situation. Nor
did he help matters by asking Eva,
who was practically child, to 20 down
to Atlantic City with him just be-
cause she had never seen the ocean.
Having so much in hand, the com
pllcatlons and the final solution in
which the thrifty wife promises to
spend all the money her husband
makes hereafter are obvious enough.
There is, however. something creative
IN the character of James Smith. the
vain little man whose amours were as
a matter of fact innocent enough and
founded on nothing more than his
desire to show off his money. The part
was delightfully."- played by Clifton
Crawford, whose usual highly sophisti-
cal musical comedy manner was
Whitfield down into a decidedly youth
ful and agreeable naIvete He was not
able TO hold this portrait quite to the
end, and, as matter of fact, the
original conception Of the character on
the part of the authors was somewhat
obscured under the strain and stress
Of farce complications. Crawford
was, however, always easy and skillful.
His performance was as neat and
polished piece of farce acting as
We have had in this neighborhood for
some time.
The other outstanding performance
Of the evening was a brilliant bit by
Miss June Walker, who played the
Youngest of the misses who attracted
the attention Of Mr.. Smith If we may
judge by one performance we should
say that Miss Walker was more than
ready for the big leagues.
Frank Morgan, Mona Kingsley, Their
esa Maxwell Conover, Rae Bowdin and
Jessie Naele we're all effective in other
roles My Lady Friends weakens
badly in the last act, but that is char
acteristic of almost all farces, and the
first two are SO funny that the play un-
doubtedly belongs on the list of every
theatergoer who is seeking light and
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