The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-09-10
"A REGULAR TELLER
OPENS AT THE CORT
Comedy by Mark Swan Centres
Largely Around Motor Cars
and Petrol.
ONE SCENE IN A GARAGE
Everett Butterfield Has Part
of Inventive Genius
Story Amusing.

After seeing Charles Emerson Cooks
production of "a Regular Teller" one
came out of the Cort Theatre fully ex-
pecting to see Broadway plastered with
posters shouting alluring announcements
about the play in such good old fash
toned phrases as "See the Great Auto
mobile Race! Watch Two Cars Dash
Through Mountainous Country Before
Your Eyes! See the Hero Streak Up
Broadway in His Race Against Dis
honor, Also Before Your Eyes! Big
Fight in Darkness at the Cross Roads
Real Gasossue Used -
For this new comedy by Mark Swan
10 distinctly a gasoline vehicle. If 1t
weren't for the automobile mania 1t
would have to be laid UP for repairs,
though as 1t stands now 1t needs no
spare parts. 1t is practically carried
along on an automobile chassis, and
actually reeks of gasoline. For the
aroma of petrol was waited across the
footlights from the first act garage,
but was atoned for later by perfume that
was squirted out into the audience from
the garden scene of the last act
It has some melodramatic thrills of
type that have found a vogue before,
such as a bona fide automobile speeding
across a motion picture background so
that It makes one think of 1.-THE Ninety
and Nine" brought down to date with
the addition of a little modern slang,
horn and a motor and a projection ma
chine.
The comedy, like the antiquated, freak
fsh hivver around which much of the
humor centres, cranks up with some diff
fculty. starts hitting on all four cylin-
ders and runs smoothly through most Of
the Your acts on puncture proof tires and
ends by missing bit.
The action Of the piece-and some
times II exceeds the legal fifteen miles
an hour-takes place at Greenport, L. l.,
thus making the play a mixture of lubri-
eating oil and rural dust A puncture
prof tire Is one of the important ac-
cessories Of the play-in fact, this pro-
duction sets a new dramatic precedent
In more ways than one, since to the
ordinary Acknowledgements in the pro-
gramme for costumes and so forth are
added those for enough equipment to
stock good piratical garage.
The first act, in fact occurs in the
country garage of Charlie Winter, the
Characteristic inventive genius forever
cherished by dramatlsts, who has de-
vised a puncture proof tire that you
can't tear with a nail--a demonstration
d actually given on the stage, though
George NJ. Cohan, who viewed the play
last night, expressed no desire to buy
the vulcanizing rights to the piece.
Inventor Finds Friend.
Winter, like the incompetent geniuses
OF his class. can't sell the tire but Dan
BrGckett, a regular Teller from the city,
happens by and is able to sell 1t for the
simple reason that Winter has a sister
that makes the regular feller's pulse
backfire
In the course of his efforts to dispose
OF the invention he has to circumvent
a villain-he's a villain for all that; he
speaks in a well modulated voice. wears
cloth topped shoes and doesn't have a
curly mustache. This opens the way
Tor race to the crossroads, capitally
presented on a drop curtain, with the
lights OF two cars shown crawling along
different roads to this objective, and
again with one car driving at full tilt
with the assistance of scenery that is
set whirling by means of a movie
machine.
These are not the only entertaining
novelties shown, for a dilapidated
roadster in the first act is actually
shown being pulmotored back to life.
This machine provides an excuse for
one of the most amusing approximations
seen on Broadway in some time. that
Of James Bradbury as Cyrus Pond,
country road commissioner and auto
mobile hater, who buys the car and
proceeds to give a dverting picture of
the man who ance tastes gasolene and
wants more. Mr.. Bradbury made the
part one Of the big bumps OF the
evening.
Almost all the male performers, in
fact did their parts with spirit and
dash which acted as an accelerator on
the few occasions when the fun dragged.
Ernest Glendinning played with excel
lent pace the part of the enthusiastic
young man whose honor Is under a cloud,
but who wins in a fifty mile dash across
the stage. Capt. Everett Butterf1eld won
applause not only for being a leader in
the recent strikes against the Kaiser and
the managers but also for the real per-
sonality he put into stage inyenting for
once. 1t was on the distaff side, how
ever, that the cast was weak. but here
again 1t was saved through amusing bits
by Charlotte Granville and Kittie O'Con-
nor, even though the latter, as a hotel
waitress, never spoke word. Together
with the gayety OF the leading male fun
makers they ought to give the comedy
q good nonstop run