Evening star., 1929-12-08

tn HERE must be thousands of old
timers round about the country
who would be more interested in
Il seeing the revival of Lehar'S
1.-The Merry Widow" than any
of the others of last weeks new Broad
way plays. They named the ladies'
hats after it 20 years ago. millions OF
miles were waltzed to its tunes all the
way round the world, and 1t brought
back with it throb of Wiener Blut-
a Whit of that carefree old Vienna
that perished with the war
Miss Beppie De Vries, the present
Sonia, is said to be Dutch; she is pretty
and gay and has good voice, and is
as good as any of the earlier merry
widows, and better than many. 1t was
the music, of course, that counted most.
as in most such revivals-the famous
waltz, the wistful deviltry of "Lo-clo,
Joujcu," Sonia's song about "Velia,"
the septet. Women" sunk by the man
principals to march time.
All in all, a satisfactory restor2 ton
of one of the most successful op"rettaS
ever written of sentimental inte est &c
many old-timers and designed to pro-
vide a pleasant evening, even Tor those
contemporaries to whom the waltz Is
merely a curious antique.
THE new Frank Golden comedy, salt
l. Water written by Dan Jarrett is
a good deal broader in its humor and
less penetrating in its picture of human
nature than Mr. Craven's memorable
First Year." for instance, but 1t is
funny, nevertheless.
Its chief weakness is the pointleSS,
almost comic-strip malice of its prin-
cipal character. The fatuous husband
of the play jumps UP and down on his
mother-in-law's picture, keeps nagging
and browbeating his suffering
| wife, and it takes all Of Mr.. Craven's
skill at playing the part of well
meaning dumb-bell, vino remains like
able while always in the wrong, to hold
the discriminating spectators SYM
pathy.
John Horner, in the play, and his
wife, Pansy live at Snag Harbor, Long
Island, in a snug old cottage which
John has inherited from his whaling
ancestors.
John is built for shallow water, but
doesn't know it. - He wants to be a
| deep-sea sailor and run his own ship
and trade with Guadalupe, Haiti, and
parts even farther and more unknown.
Actually, he has a job as candy
butcher" on an Albany night boat, but
he tells everybody that he is first mate,
| and partly on the strength of this he
gets a real old sea-dog to go in with
him on the purchase of freighter
| named Barracuda.
Johns wife. Pansy. kept her eyes on
the ferry instead of the deep sea, partly
because she was more practical than
John, partly because she wanted to keep
her husband at home. While John was
| negotiating, in secret, for the realiza-
| ton of his lifelong dream, Pansy, also
| in secret, took their SIS 900 Joint savings
and bought the ferry.
1t is at the end of the second act
that the situation thus suggested
comes to climax. During a rain
storm the old ferryboat rams its slip
and sinks. just as John finds that his
wife has bought the ferry. In order to
put him off the track of what was in
the air Johns nagging and run-it-all
sister had given him the impression
which Mrs. Horner didn't correct-that
| his wife was going to have a baby, and
| the fatuous and delighted husband has
| just been celebrating the approaching
cabin-boy" with the whole family.
IE the midst of the hullaballoo that
! follows the wreck of the ferryboat one
of the victims of the accident, the very
man who advised Mrs. Horner to buy
the ferry, is brought into the house,
! soaking wet, and is put into Johns best
]
away. John, learning everything at
once, packs both his wife and sister out
| Of the house, and then, as the stage
clears, doctor, for whom his wife has
telephoned to take care of those hurt
in the accident, demands his $40 of
John or he'll make trouble"
| AT this point Mr.. Craven says against
the wall with one of those inimitable
expressions of comic woe which he
knows SO we'll how to assume under
| such circumstances.
"I've lost the only chance I ever had
to get ship" he cries. 1--WE lost my
wife, I've lost my son, I've lost my
money and I've lost my best suit of
clothes, and you-YOU-threaten to
make me troubled And to his low
means and cackles of despair down goes
the curtain.
| X X X
| A RE New Workers happy? This pro-
found query, so fertile in its posi-
| bilities for Sunday magazine discussion
has been attacked of late from various
| angles, and in Daniel Rubin's "Under-
tow the implications are decidedly that
New Workers are not.
Mr.. Rubins fable begins in Waco,
Tex. 1t is moonlit Summer evening