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'Yellow Sands. The English playgoer does not insist upon excitement to the extent that the U. S. playgoer does. Furthermore, the English are at present deeply concerned with almost any kind of tract on Bolshevism. These facts help to explain why this play by Eden Phillpotts* and his daughter Adelaide will probably not do for Manhattan as it did for London. It is a gentle treatise on Capitalism v. Bolshevism; and it proves its point (that Bolshevism is just "a bad smell from the Northeast") by holding up the case of a young fisherman in a snug seacoast village. Smouldering with indignation against the plutocrats, he flares up on all provocations to declare his ardent desire for revolution. Then his aunt dies, leaving him a fortune; and soon he looks upon the bright yellow sands of the seacoast, smiling instead of glowering. There is little sin and no shooting in the play, but the dialog and quaint characterization lend it quiet charm. My Maryland. When blond and youthful Barbara Frietchie from her balcony defied all her Southern friends and relatives by waving the Union flag in the face of Stonewall Jackson, she proved that her heart belonged to the wounded Yankee officer who lay at the point of death in her own boudoir. "March on," thundered General Jackson,* who forthwith clumped ostentatiously off the stage, while the Confederate Army followed with flags waving. Then the wounded Yankee staggered onto the balcony to clasp Barbara (Evelyn Herbert) to his heart and the curtain came down. In Manhattan the Civil War is a matter of politics rather than patriotism, so Manhattan will not be so easily aroused by a tenor in blue (Nathaniel Wagner) sawing the air with his sabre as was Phil- adelphia, where My Maryland had a successful run. In fact, the melo- dramatics are so naive that a rousing march song by Sigmund Rom- berg, accompanied by stagy gestures, failed of the usual operatic magic. It was hard to escape the feeling that a great crowd of chil- dren had left off "cowboys and Indians" to play Civil War.
Half a Widow is a musical show about the World War. As far as the War is concerned, one may well repeat the lackadaisical Moran's† classical query, "Why did you bring that up?" The rest of it, however, is pretty good, especially the clowning of Bennie Rubin. Had it been produced a decade ago, when it was written, it might have been better.
The Wild Man of Borneo. No