The Washington herald., 1921-09-13
ny EARLE DORSEY.


The wages Of fine writing is ever
and anon a financial 1ip-fiop and
Rida johnson Young must have
been highly sverpaid in that cur
rency for the effort she made in
her latelamented THE Front
Seat" It Is clearly a sadder but
a wiser Rida who turns up again
this time with a stick of Pollyanna
stage candy named "a Wise Child"
This new play of Ridas. which
bowed at the National last night.
Is frankly designed to charm the
cutie lovers and those who read
fiction without remembering the
author. That class includes IS per
cent Of theater-Roers. hence 1T Is
safe to predict a triumph at the
box office, toward which the canny
Rida now rolls an anxious eye.
Rida. however. has failed. despite
her sinister purpose. to totally sup
press that queer urge toward good
work that seems to animate the
woman. For instance. she has Sc
lected that Hardy old theme of the
rich father dying Of remorse over
his ill-tratment of dead wife and
a missing daughter. These miss
ing daughters are usually discov-
cred teaching school in Eugene.
oregon, or dealing them of the
arm in CChilds'. but Rida finds her
long-lost daughter in a biG-time
vaudeville team and thereby paves
the way for q lot of the more OBJ
yious humor naturally indigenous
to the character.
The discovery of the girl then
nroceeds to follow the usual con-
ventionai lines TO the point where
IL is impossible for her to keep up
any longer the farce OF making
believe she Is the real heiress. The
old fellow was good to her mother
wears before. and she only wanted
to make his dying years happy.
Murder will out, though, and the
real heirs give away the game just
as the rejuvenated old fellow gets
caught in market crash and
wiped out.
At this moment the girls vaude-
VILE partner takes artificial UNI
brage at her annoyed suggestion
that he get out until she can quiet
the old man, and he keeps on get
ting out until California and the
movies are reached, whereupon he
rolls UP a fortune (without any
ones knowledgeD and 1t is third
act time before he gets back and
patches UP the romantic and hnan-
cfal troubles of his sweetie and
her adopted dad.
It's the usual romantic sort Of
thing that one generally accents
from the Aron Hoffmans, the
Edgar Allan woolfs and the Ed
ward Childs Carpenters. / make
not the slightest doubt that at
least 90 out of every 100 seat
buyers will 60 into sophomore
raptures over II. One can even
conscientiously recommend the
mounting that Dillingham mas
given the affair and without doubt
vivienne Segal does very fetch
ineiy, particularly in her more mu-
sical moments.
Mr.. Dillingham's decision to go
in for the drama is not vociferously
applouded from this corner. Making
Dillingham; into a dramatic pro-
ducer is like making a banjoist into
a Chautauqua organist. He doesn I
seem at home in the medium at all
and once or twice his profound
sense OF color gets completely out
of bounds and he rigs UP one OF the
daintiest scenes you'll see this sea-
son. Miss Segal is acceptable in
dramatic role Of this sort, but such
stuff should be saved until she
reaches the diet age. She and Dill
lingham belong in music.
The real acting OF the evening
was done by Charles Able as
bur,er Though the rest of the cast
seemed fairly effective and the
only real blemish. aside from the
sheer trivialfty Of the play, was the
mysterious failure Of comedy ele-
ncnts to register foicibly enough.
Perhaps Fred Latham finds him
self away from home in staging
this dramatic stuff. He was always
good workman with the music.