The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-09-18
FIRST IS LAST HAS
UNIVERSITY FLAVOR
Piece by Shipman and Wilde
Produced at Maxine
Elliott's.
DEPICTS STUDENT LIFE
Hassard Short, Robert Strange,
FRANKLIN Ardell and Phoebe
Foster Do Well.
"First /. Last'--A. Maxine Enlot.,.

The college play swam into the wh,rl-
pool Of New York theatricals last night.
The hitherto invineible Samuel shipmsn
and Pereival Wilde are responsible for
the latest specimen OF this difficult class
which begins In the academic groves
about Broadway and 10th street. But
only one act pasesRf In a fraternity
house at Columbia College. The other
two are at the home OF supposedly
successful graduate. The experienced-
especially those who are alumni--are
nervous at the prospect of facing a play
of university life. Il sugEests dinner
| coats on rather stout graduates, punch
| bowls, good old" and "rah-rah" with
out end, college flags and other outward
| and visible signs OF the stage managers
idea OF existence In these institutions.
Or there is the coed. among the
dfdmafis personoe and campus with
very green and leafy trees under which
| things happen which never could happen
anywhere else but In a college play. It
is unfortunate to be apprehensive about
|, such matters It was especially unfortu-
nate last night. Those who suffered in
advance had to undergo all the poignant
agoflies over again in reality.
The same Ola College Bslderdash.
For First Is Last proved to be an
uncommonly vlrulent specimen Of its
kind. There was to be sure no campuR
But there was a college fraternity house
in which men and women mingled on
| social terms unknown to the self-respect-
ing students Of Columbia. Unhygienlcally
negleoting the ladie, they dipped punch
out of q bowl with their glasses, lis
tened to the inevitable close harmony
i 70 a, n
privacy of the fraternity house. 1t would
be interesting to hear what self-respect-
ing Columbia students have to say of
the first act Time may have passed
since Brown OF Harvard" wac perpe-
trated and maybe the sun do move. BUT
the college play can still stick In the
mlre of traveety and vulgarity. And a
portrait Of Dean Van Amringe hung on
a wall to countenance all the monkey
shines that ignorance and audacity could
invent as a part OF life at Columbia.
A Contract to BE Kept.
These various students on the point
Of leaving college had various ambitions.
There were a poet, a banker, an engi-
neer, composer and lawyer. The
girls also had plans Of their own. They
convened in the second act to carry
out an agreement that after three years
their earnings should be pooled ano
divided according to an estimate
founded on their own opinions OF their
abilities. Thus the play since 1t could
not grow more preposterous as a pic
ture of undergraduate life, became fan
itastie and duller. OF course none had
made money. The climax OF taste and
humor In this act was reserved for al
most Its last speech.
The poet having gone into the busi-
ness of collecting garbage-pretty
thought-offered TO deliver what he pos
sessed in cans at the doors Of his old
friends. Thus was one flower of wit
and Imagination followed by another
equally delicate and frgrant. Even the
friendly audience was rather appalled,
by all this although there was little tc
indicate that there was any particular
knowledge OF college life to prejudice
It. But one need not go to university
to know what garbage Is. 1t may be
possible to learn in a theatre.
| The Actors I'm the Play.
OF course the players struggling with
such material could not be harshl,
judged. Hassard Short may sugges
many characters in the world, but &
student at an American college rs no