The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-10-15
Stage Effects One of the Fea-
lures of War Play-Entire
Company Good.
1.-THE Luck of the Navy''-At the
Manhattan Opern House.

NOT the least OF the many DIG sur
prises revealed about The Luck of the
Navy" which f. Ray Comstock and
Morris Gest presented at the Manhat-
tan Opera House last night, is the fact
that its author Clifford Mills, is a
| woman-a Mrs. Mlls-and yet she has
written virile melodrama to the queens
taste. Yea, verify. -.-
While the press agent has been food
ing the market with stories of how
Percy Hutchison and the rest Of the
Queens Theatre company in London
who reported for duty in their entirety
at the Manhattan last night-had given
command performance before Queen
Mary and have kept the play bowling
along merrily for nearly two years In
the British metropolis, he has been hold
ing back on the world the really vital
fact that the dramatist was a Mrs.
1t was only disclosed last night when
the personable Mr.. Hutchinson made a
modest curtain speech, in which he
| thanked the audience for its friendly
welcome, which indicated that America
still shows hands across the sea even
when II comes to applauding. But any
woman had written this thriller from
the fact that she made the chief villain
one of her own sex.
Plenty of Action in Play.
This is Mrs. Gordon Peel, supposedly
| deep dyed patriot and head of a British
anti-alien society during the war. but
| In reality German spy, who has given
her son, Sub-Lieut. Louis Peel, to be
trained In the British navy in order
that he might be ready when Der Tag
| should break and the Kaiser started
| himself toward the woodpile In Ameron-
gen and Germany toward the junk heap
| PeePs commander, Lieut.. CHue Stanton
who won the V. c. for his exploits with
the submarine AS. comes into possession
of important papers about the British
fleets movements-those papers without
which all war on the stage would lust
| have to stop.
The play revolves about the efforts OF
| Mrs. Peel and her houseful of Teutonic
spies near the close of the war, to wrest
| from Stanton the code for these papers,
aided by chloroform, screens. signal APP
paratus, searchliehts, airplanes, and prac-
| tieally every modern device which q
playwright can invoke. aided by a re-
sourceful stage carpenter. The plots and
joint apartment at Dunton, a small town
on the east coast of England. and in Mrs
Peers country home two miles away, and
so rapid Is the action that England's fleet
! is virtually lost and saved in one day
| To do this there Is much whispering
and hiding behind screens, and the
luck of the navy" plays an essentia
/ part in bringing villainy to the dust
but in the end the hero wins out, ever
! II he does have to recover from al
| an@sthetic in remarkably short time
| 1t would be unfair to reveal the many
exciting complications of the story, par.
ticularly as the production bids fair tc
| remain in New York long enough fol
every one DESTROYS to satisfy his curl
osity on some standard methods for cir
/ cumventing Germans. Suffice II to say
that the play has been admirably con
trived for its purpose-that OF beint
| frankly melodramatic entertainment
and that the playwright has contributed
at least one new device to her metiel
by making the climax In her last &C
consist of quotation from Scripture.
Well Balanced Company.
Members of the company were splen
didly fitted to their parts and carried
| the play with such pace one never no
|
was running neck and neck with thu
action. Even the old fashioned asides
which were unnecessary. fell by the way
! side in the general rush to carry on.
| Mr. Hutchison, besides looking the par
| of a naval officer to the life, played witt
deft sureness. and by his skilful com
| edy touch relieved the drama of an.
tendency It might have had toward Z
heavy London fog. In fact, his futur
would seem to lie rather upon the groun'
| Of light comedy than upon the sea o
! melodrama-
I Kate Carew, as the arch conspirator
]. II. Croker-King as her confederate
incorporating as a wounded BelglaI
Colonel A. p. Kaye, as blur retired
English Admiral; Aubrey Mather, as tn,
vacillating Peel; Patrick Ludlow, as 1
cheeky midshipman, who left his over
| coat behind and returned at the psy
| Geological moment Blanche lie Roy, a.
a maid, and Muriel Martin Harvey. a.
1 q girl who was called upon to be nothing
| but pretty and who met the require
ments-these and the others in the bill
company worked with the smoothness o
well groomed gun that can't help hit
ting the target.
! Though this is the first English melo
drama to debark here since the United
States entered the war, II has less o.
the purely spectacular about 1t thai
most of its class. but IN the prologue I
| has a scene of a British submarine com
ing to the surface, and OF the English
warships in action against Zeppelin
that is quite the best stage Illusion pu
on the firing line. The audience, which
held many high naval officers, applaudeC
literally. and 1.-THE Luck OF the Navy
would seem to be in for the best~of luci
here.