New-York tribune., 1919-09-13
Dram a
''Civilian Clothes," by Thomp.
son Buchanan, Seen at
the Morosco
By Haywood Broun

An excellent idea for the stage was
presented last night when Thompson
Buchanan's "Civilian Clothes" opened
at the Morosco Theatre. An excellent
idea, fresh, broad in scope and truly
dramatic, but oh, Mr.. Buchananl 1t
may be, as MIR. Buchanan says, that
the way to handle q woman is tc
treat her rough" but we are quite
sure that 1t is a mistake to extend the
rule to plots.
"Civiian Clothes" is play about an
American girl of patrician stock, who
goes TO France and falls in love with
brave young captain He is q hero.
masterful and efficient officer and a
romantic hero. She marries him secret
~ in a shell-swept village just behind
the lines, and q few days later nc is
severely wounded. In fact, his name
appears on the list of those killed in
action and the girl does not see him
again until months after the war, when
he comes Unexpectedly to her home in
civilian clothes. The shoes of the hero
are bright yellow. his tie is red and
green and his suit bulges where it
should press closely and presses close
~ where it should hang free. He is
glamour gone her loves does, too for a
little while. The shock is all the hard
er when the former army man tells the
girl that his father is the best cobbler
in Racine and that he intends to take
her TO live in little cottage next the
shop.
Here is an excellent starting point
for light comedy, high comedy trag
edy. farce. or what you will, but Bu
chanan has elected to treat his theme
as broad and cheap farce comedy with
sentimental complications. In order
to teach his wife lesson in social
democracy. the husband, whose iden-
tity is not known to the rest Of the
family, accepts position as butler in
the girls home. and the audience is
treated to a more or less familiar COM
parison between the virtues of the
humble and the vices of the affluent.
OF course the experiment succeeds.
Every now and then q line blazes up
from the embers, which makes it pos
sible to believe that Buchanan could
have done much better with his theme,
but purposely cheapened it to bid for
popular favor Rebuked for going
from an army captaincy to the position
of q butler the hero replies that there
is nothing incongruous in his choice
Of civilian profession. when my
colonel talks to his general" he ex-
plains, "he's perfect butler'
But such sharp satire is rare in the
play, which is largely devoted to broad
horseplay and even wider sentiment.
1t may be that Mr.. Buchanan's method
VIII attain a large measure Of success.
The audience was markedly amused
last night, and yet we are of the opin-
ion that at least as successful a career
might be commanded by better treat
ment of the theme. 1t can be said in
justice to the play that although it is
often cheap and tawdry, there is dis
tlnct current of events until the last
act. which drags badly. Incident is
abundant. and many of the humorous
devices, although familiar, are handled
adroitly enough to be amusing
The acting is attuned to the char
acter Of the play. Thurs.on Hall as
Sam McGinnis. the homespun hero,
was particularly successful He over
acts by wide margin in many in
stances, but his performance has the
merit of being alive and vigorous, and
IN spite Of its flaws it was much rel
lshed by the first nighters. Another
performance, almost as effective and
somewhat shrewder to our mind. was
that Of Marion Nantine as a scheminc
widow. Olive Tell was beautiful to
look at, and acted at times we'll enough
TO make the audience forget the fact.
Frank Sylvester, who has a notable
gallery Of stage portraits to his credit.
was wasted on a rather thankless role.
William Holden and Jack Rutherford
were effective