The sun., 1919-03-29
Famous Actress Tells Of Excit-
4 ing Experiences While
Z Playing Overseas.
WORKED NEAR THE LINES
Says Need for Stage Folk on
I Other Side Is Greater Now
i} Than Ever.


over dead men to play before living ones.
The Shock Company was one Of the units
Of the Overseas League formed about
about year ago by Winthrop Anes and
James Forbes to carry the drama to
our boys "over there" and was so
named because 1t played right UP to the
German lines. becoming so bombproof
that Miss Mayo says they missed tho
sound OF the guns when peace came
and hushed them.
"And when during the war We went
back sometimes to a quiet sector we
felt lonesome for the noise-sort Of out
Of It itko moving to q new Jersey town
and not having the New York papers in
tia morning" she said yesterday when
she told a few of the things that hap
pened to the Overseas League during it,
engagement.
Miss Mayo returned on the Olympic
landing at Halifax and coming down
BY rail. The three months engagement
OF the league ended on the day the
armistice was proclaimed. It in hoped
that other companies will 60 over and
continue the good work of keeping our
soldiers amused.
Our troops will DO there, some OF
them, eighteen months more" she said
II there Is more trouble. and now II
looks like 1t. they may be kept longer.
And they need amusement Companies
SONG over now would have an easier
time than We did: for one thing, their
audiences would probably not walk out
on them. as ours sometimes did. Not
because they were not pleased with the
observation-disclosures were audiences
easier to please than ours over there
but because a bomb burst or something.
or because the men were suddenly Or
1ered on. Then they'd get right UP in
ths' middle OF performance, perhaps,
and move on"
Played in the ArGonne.
This was specially the case in the
Argonne, where the Shock Company was
during the last great offensive. and at
Les Islets, a little village where tho
unit spent some weeks This was the
last of the replacement camps where
the men stayed who were about to be
Enoved on to replace troops that were
being withdrawn.
They were always detected" Miss
Mayo said, lonesome for their own
commands, from which they had been
taken. and knowing they were Just going
Into battle. And SO they were very glad
10 come to our show. We had a theatre
there in an old stable. where we gave
four shows a day. two in the afternoon
went out into the woods where the men
were camped,- camoufaged under roof
ihgs Of brush In order to hide them from
the German airships that were con-
stantly passing above.
= WED set up a stage on a truck or
Just on the ground, and the men in the
front row of the orchestra circle would
NJ down resting on their elbows the
men back OF them knelt and those In the
Than there ~ n en-
the branches of the trees, where the
gallery gods hung on like monkeys.
They'd cling there and never tire, APP
parently. as long as We played.
AT Les lslets the three women OF our
unit, Elisabeth Bryce, Lois Meredith and
myself. were billeted in one room in the
barracks which a nice Colonel insisted
on giving UP to us. The three men. VIII
Morrissey. Ray Walker. the pianist. and
Tommy Grey had little room or the
camp kitchen, and the rats used to run
over their beds all night. They made
bets with each other as to which of the
rats would appear next-they got to
know them apart. We carried our cots
with us wherever we went, with six
blankets apiece and tarpaulin for the
spread.
"That was a wonderful place, Les
dslets. From our little room we looked
down on a crossroads, along which there
passed an endless procession Of troops
and guns, and big white oamions, and
trucks loaded with supplies. II was
funny to hear the Americans driving the
French mules.
"'Allez allez ., they'd yell-and then
in despairing sort OF howl. 'allez,
damn you! Giddapv
And then after a battle tho wounded
would be brought along those Same
roads. 1t was fearfully congested there
men lying In doorways. any place they
could find. wrapped up in their blankets.
There was no time to take them to
camp"
The Overseas League consisted of
complete units. each of which took
certain route They first planned to give
o whole plsy-"Twin Beds" was the one
they selected-but finding that their
stage might be anything from one end
Of stable to truck or the baro ground.
they decided that 1t would be safer to
stick 20 variety-a sort OF mixture OF
vaudeville and comedy. Miss Mayo wrote
the skeleton of the little play which
afterward they worked out on the other
side
I'VE found that the boys enjoyed
local bits, wheezes about some Of their
number" Miss Mayo said. land so we
tried to keep hep to things in tho camps
and bring everything in. Our little play
began with sort or burleSQue on our
selves: we were ChautauQuans sitting
around and wondering what the soldiers
would like us to do and We would sug-
lEest and try various things. At the
end some of us would go down among
the audience and talk back to tho ones
on the stage. The men loved that.
Varying. Audiences.
I'VE gave our first performance in the
Tuileries Garden in Paris to an audience
of $4,000. containing. believe, every
nationality under the sun except Ger
mans. Then we went to n place near
Paris, travelling on a barge canal, and
played for 500 Americans whom we
found putting UP stage for US
Audiences varied like that--sometime
we'd play TO thousands and then again at
camp where there was just little
bunch.
Pianos were supposed to be taboo,
but we had one and played it, That
piano had a hectic career. Tho Ameri-
cans found II In a German TRENCH
grand trench II was. plastored and
kalsomined. wired for electric lights ana
furnished with rugs and this piano. Then
again on one red letter day when the
camp where we o, were had somehow
acquired barrel of sorghum and was
celebrating tho unaccustomed sweet
word came that perfectly good plano
was lying on q salvage heap near the
German lines 1t was exposed to