Head First. Oliver Morosco, who long ago gave the world the unforgettable Peg 'o My Heart, has produced only spasmodically and with ill success of recent years. His present contribution is gruesomely numbered with the growing list of entertainments at which first night audiences have this season tittered. It tells of a business woman who grew very rich and remained nevertheless faithful to her inefficient husband.
A Night in Paris. Some weeks ago the puissant brothers Lee and J. J. Shubert imported from Paris parts of the personnel of Chez Fysher, notable night club. They set up in the basement of the Century Theatre a Manhattan Chez Fysher, which has become for those who cherish French entertainment a notable night club. To make their investment the more lucrative, the brothers determined to incorporate these performers into a revue on the Century Roof. This handsome playhouse, which for so long was the lodging of the Chauve-Souris, has been completely and tastefully redecorated for the occasion and named the Casino de Paris.
After the names of the revue and the theatre the Parisian element ceased to predominate. Nine tenths of the show is typical revue vaudeville, exceedingly well dressed at times and conscientiously undressed at others. Broad farce and slim figures alternate. The U. S. contributions are as usual and a little better than usual. About the French there is not much to report except that Yvonne George sings her songs. Mlle. George is to many people the greatest European revue and cabaret artist, only excepting Raquel Meller. To miss her is to miss one of the most, if not the most, extraordinary experience to be had at any revue this season.
Song of the Flame.* Have Messrs. Harbach and Hammerstein, authors of Rose-Marie, repeated? They have not, quite. They have scrambled up some princes and peasants in the hot pan of the Russian revolution, unscrambling them again in Paris—a moderately tasty plot, but lacking romance's true savor. Composers George Gershwin and Herbert Stothart have tried to catch the Slavic note, but the U. S. is too full of sad-singing Russians for their imitators to go undetected. Joseph Urban has spread out the settings with a fine free hand. Choreographer Jack Haskell has set in motion some adept and personable disciples. Ula Sharon, Tessa Kosta, Guy Robertson and a hitherto second-string funny man, Bernard Gorcey, will satisfy the moderately desirous. It is an earnest and expensive effort at light opera. It is rich, vivid, entertaining. But another such as Rose-Marie? Not quite.
* Omitted inadvertently from TIME last week.