The Washington times., 1920-08-29

ship sinking under him. she nights
cn--to what? To another surprise
which should not be told in advance.
The cast includes Inez Plummer.
Myrtle Tannahill. Mary Worth. AL
phonse Either, Charles Trowbridge.
Henry Duggan, George Abbott. Rob-
ert Walheim, Walter Scott, Joseph
Spurin. and others under the direc-
ton of Sargent Aborn.
During the late worlds greatest
free-for-all, that particular zone OF
activities commonly alluded to in
aviation communiques as, over the
lines furnished many thrilling
episode to relieve the monotony of
trench warfare as endured by the
"ground-hogs," sand -ra bbits." mud
crushers" and "cootie-nounds" spend
ing their daily lives like prairie dogs
in holes in the ground. The almost
daily aerial performances were
staged by their actors in the greatest
theatre ever used by any production.
space, and. when the range OF
visibility is considered, for the larg-
est audiences.
But to the men in the trenches, no
feature of these cloudland spectacles
was quite so thrilling as a crippled.
sometimes burning, plane plunging
duO"n IHc NOlu. "OuHutu uhlO uSaNh
sometimes at a height of $4,000 feet,
they furnished an awe1inspiring pic
ture to the tense, straining men far
below who oftentimes knew not
whether the doomed bird wore the
plumage of the hated Huns double
eagle or that of our own proud bird.
But il is a long cry from the real
thing to Stimulating such an effect
within the confines of modern
theater and even to attempt such
thing required no little courage to
say nothing of the thought, work, and
patience required to bring such a pre-
sentation to a complete success.
However, the spectacle OF a plane
falling through ! 800 feet of nothing
is to be presented in The Broken
Wing" a comedy-drama OF Mexican
border life, by those celebrated CAL
laborators, Paul Dickey and Charles
w. Goddard which will hold the
boards at the National Theater this
week.
Starting at a point away up 'mongst
the back borders of the stage, the
audience sees a wee plane apparently
In difficulties and, although called
upon to exercise its Imagination to
some eXtent-a license peculiarly the
property OF playwrIghts-plainly
hears the conversation between tho
observer and his pilot while, all the
time growing larger and more dis
tinct to the eye, the plane plunges
downward toward Mother Earth until
a tremendous mrash is heard and IL
eventually revealed as a crushed mass
of twisted and broken wings. fusil-
age, wires, and human freight when
the lights "come on"
During its long fall in entire dark
ness both on the stage and in the
auditorium, a tiny searchlight is con-
tinually playing from the aerial
wanderer, sometimes up into the sky
and again out over the heads of the
audience, and those who witnessed
the scenic rehearsals of THE Broken
Wing" on the stage of the Brooklyn
Academy of Music last week describe
II as one of the most realistic elec.
trical effects ever used upon the
stage.
How and by what means this novel
effect is achieved Is a mystery even
to the members of the company, as
the electrician in charge guards hts
secret as a miser does his gold, but
when the observer is hauled from be-
meath the wreckage, II Is hard for the
spectators to believe for time that
they have not actually witnessed a
little bit of "over there"