Williams news., 1919-01-03
OVER THE TOP
(Continued from last week


 hands in despair It S=-a material which I had to use. Just imagine trying to teach Tommy, with strong cockney accent, to impersonate a Bowery tough or Southern negro.
 Adjacent to our billet was an open field. We got busy at one end of it and constructed a stage. We secured the lumber for the stage by demolishing an old wooden shack in the rear of our billet.
 The first scene was supposed to rep resent street on the Bowery in New York, while the scene of the second act was the interior of the Diamond Palace saloon, also on the Bowery.
 In the play took the part of Abe Switch, a farmer, who had come from Pumpkinville Center, Tenn, to make his first visit to New York.
 In the first scene Abe Switch meets the proprietor of the Diamond Palace saloon, a ramshackle affair which to the owner was financial loss.
 The proprietors name was Tom Twistem, his bartender being named Fillem Up.
 After meeting Abe, Tom and Fillem Up persuaded him to buy the place, praising it to the skies and telling wondrous tales of the money taken over the bar.
 While they are talking, an old Jew named Ikey Cohenstein comes along, and Abe engages him for cashier. After engaging Ikey they meet an old Southern negro called Sambo, and upon the suggestion of Ikey he is en- gagged as porter. Then the three of them, arm in arm, leave to take pos: session of this wonderful palace which Abe has just paid $6,0OO for. Cur tain.)
 In the second act the curtain rises on the interior of the Diamond Palace saloon, and the audience gets it's first shock. The saloon looks like a pig. pen, two tramps lying drunk on the floor, and the bartender in dirty shirt with his sleeves rolled up, asleep with his head on the bar.
 Enter Abe, Sambo and Ikey, and the fun commences.
 One of the characters in the second act was named Broadway Kate, and I had an awful job to break in one of
  woman.
 Another character was Alkah Ike, an Arizona cowboy, who just before the close of the play comes into the saloon and wrecks it with his revolver.
 We had eleven three-hour rehearsals before I thought it advisable to pre- sent the sketch to the public.
 The whole brigade was crazy to witness the first performance. This performance was scheduled for Friday night and everyone was full of antici- patton; when bang! orders came through that the brigade would move at two that afternoon. Cursing and blinding was the order of things upon the receipt of this order, but we moved.
 That night we reached the little viii lage of S- and again went into rest billets. We were to be there two weeks. Our company immediately got busy and secured the village for q suitable place in which to present our production. Then we received another shock.
 A rival company was already estab- lished in the village. They called '"The Bow Bells,' and | put on a sketch entitled, "BEghty- What Hopes?' They were the divi- sional concert party.
 We hoped they all would be soon l in Blighty to give us chance.
 This company charged an admission of a franc per head, and that night our company went en masse to see f fhoiy I had sinking sensation when l thought of running my sketch in op- position to it. In one of their scenes they had soubrette called Flossie. The soldier that took this part was clever and made a Incorporating and chic girl. We immediately fell in love with her until two days after, while we were on a march, we passed Flossie with ''her'' sleeves rolled up and the sweat pouring from 'her" face unloading shells from a motor lorry.
 AS. our section passed her I yelled out: Hello, Flossie; Blighty-What Hopes?" Her reply made our love die out instantly.
 "Ah, go to h-l"
 This brought quite laugh from the marching column directed at me. and instantly made up my mind that our sketch should immediately run in Op- position to "Blighty-What HopesT
 When we returned to our billet from the march, Curley Wallace, my the atrical partner, came running over to me and said he had found swanky place in which to produce our show.
 After taking off my equipment, and