Theater: Old Play in Manhattan: Sep. 26, 1938

Lightnin’ (by Winchell Smith & Frank Bacon; produced by John Golden). A sentimental, middle-aged first-night audience, typified by former Governor Alfred E. Smith, last week greeted Lightnin’ in revival. Opening originally in 1918, Lightnin’ ran 1291 performances, setting a Broadway record since topped only by Abie’s Irish Rose (2,532 performances). Tobacco Road (2,050). Experienced theatregoers worried little whether Lightnin’ would date, knowing that it already dated when first written. For old as folk drama is the tale of warm-hearted Lightnin’ Bill Jones, who loafs as chronically as Rip van Winkle, lies as outrageously as Tartarin of Tarascon. Typical whopper: how he drove a swarm of bees across a prairie in the dead of winter without losing a bee.

In Lightnin’, wave after wave of purest hokum sweeps across the stage, but so candidly that nobody minds. Famed Hoofer Fred Stone (Montgomery & Stone) proved himself a winning character actor, brought to the title role made famous by Frank Bacon if not the same homely vigor, a sly and childlike charm. Lightnin’, as Actor Stone—borrowing an old line of his—remarked in his curtain speech, is a play “to which children can safely bring their parents.”