The sun., 1919-09-13

CIVILIAN CLOTHES A
DEXTEROUS COMEDY
Thompson Buchanan Back in
Broadway With One Of
Seasons Hits.
A TOUCH OF MILITARY
Dialogue Is Witty and Players
All Prove Most Sat-
isfying.

"civllian Clothes" which oliver
Morosco presented at the Morosco The
atre last night, betokens much more
than the return OF It's hero from the
battlefields of Europe to the battlefields
of Eros 1t means the return of its
author Thompson Buchanan, to Broad
way--that straight and narrow path to
success-for the qualities of the comedy
are quite sufficient to drag him from
the confines of a motion picture writ
er's den in California. Since "A wom-
ans way" Mr. Buchanans- playwright
ing has not always revealed the Midas
touch. but he may once more don the
civilian clothes of successful dramatist.
The three acts of the present work are
concerned with the Homecoming Of
soldier of the American Expeditionary
Force, but a novel treatment makes
them a much more enjoyable means of
filling in the hours till bedtime than
most plays of that type which peace has
released for the front of the footlights.
Mr.. Buchanan must have heard some
elderly gossips discussing the marriage
of a girl to a man whom she had met
in the army, and caught the remark,
But Just wait till she sees him with his
military makeup off!' He has based
his play on that, taking the idea of the
glamor radated by military uniform
and working 1t backward.
A DextcrOus Comedy.
He had built dexterous comedy of
manners, in this case bad manners,
which are sometimes good from the
theatrical standpoint. Sam McGinnts,
son of shoemaker and civil engineer
by divine right of self-acquired educa-
ton, works his way up to a Captaincy
in the A. L F. by sheer force OF mind
and fists. In that rank he is decorated
with the D. 8. G. for bravery, and
secretly marries Florence Ldnhdm, a
daughter of a wealthy Southern family
who is doing war work at the front
and who Is captivated by McGinnis's
rank and by the grandly heroic way in
which he boxes her ears for disobeying
orders.
when he comes back to America, at
the start of the play. Mc7innis finds
the girl, In her home surroundings at
Louisville, snob of the deepest dye,
ready to throw him over because she
doesn't like his family and appearance
in civilian clothes, especially his yellow
shoes weirdly reminiscent of army
styles of footgear. In fact, II might be
said that during the first act the play
was set in motion by those shoes. The
ex-Captain coolly announces he'll win
her yet by learning to be one OF her
class from those social patterns Of the
time. the servants. So, since she has
kept the marriage secret, he becomes
a butler in her home.
Further entanglements ensue before
the hayward wife finally comes TO ac-
knowledge her wilfulness in a bedroom
in New Orleans hotel-though in this
instance the bedroom scene Is eminently
proper and mercifully brief. In the
course OF the play Mr.. Buchanan's char
acters indulge in several quips at the
expense OF higher officers In the army,
which drew hearty laughter and APP
plause last night from many in the
audience who seemed to have military
discharge papers behind their outlaws
Quips at High Omcers.
But Mr.. Buchanan's satire Is good
natured, and indirectly he pays n trib-
ute to a democratic army system that
can grant the well favored social posi-
ton Of an officer to man who rose by
a relatives boot straps--Just as Lloyd
George did.
Except for few lapses into vulgarity
the dialogue is often witty, though It
rarely appeared to be dialect For
though the play was pitched in the
South, none of the persons in It APP
peared to have voices pitched in the
minor key of that region. In fact one
could never hear the band play Dixie"
when they spoke. Perhaps It was just
as we'll
That may have been due to the play
ers, whose mannerisms were those of
South Amboy rather than the real South
| But that is the only fault to be found
with them. for the work of the cast as a
whole transcribed mere geography.
| Thurston Hall earned a stalwart per-
sonal triumph as McGfnnis, even though
1t came as a shock to hear him call him
self an Irishman. Olive Tell was pleas
ant enough in the somewhat thankless
role of the girl. and the others were so
uniformly good 1t would be absurd to
mention single names. Mr.. Morosco APP
pears TO have one of the hits of the new