COMEDY THE CRIMSON PLAYGOER OPERETTA

For four years in New York "Abie's Irish Rose" has borne up bravely under the condemnation and ridicule of the dramatic critics. It will play to full houses and the resultant full cash boxes in Boston regardless of what the critics say. The natural temptation is to follow the lead of Messrs. Benchley, Broun, and Nathan, and make a joke of the whole thing. Here is a play ideal for the humorous review, and the seats in Row V--V not, in this case, meaning five--which the management graciously bestowed upon this department might reasonably inspire humor of the citrous sort. "Abie's Irish Rose" has, however, become a phenomenon--the press notices boastfully say so--and, whatever it may deserve as a play, as a phenomenon it deserves the same serious consideration that we give to five-footed calves and weasel-faced canaries. It is our task to explain the unprecedented success which Miss Nichols' farce has attained.

This success, after all, is certainly not inexplicable. Miss Nichols has written a play of racial conflicts, tied together by every stock device of the theatre, with lines embodying the best Irish-Jewish jokes of the past few--to be charitable--years. There is no element of surprise in plot or in situation, every entrance and every exit is perfectly obvious. There is nothing subtle in the entire piece, but Miss Nichols is not writing for a public that demands subtlety. She should not be reviled by the critics, for she has the true instinct of the showman. She is giving a particular portion of the public what it most wants to see. The box office return is her best justification.

A fact which is harder to explain than the success of the play is that its patronage comes, it would appear, in a very considerable measure from the two races which are lampooned. To the neutral observer at the Castle Square Monday night it seemed that the assembly was divided into two cheering sections, each urging on its chosen cohorts in the battle of wits on the stage. The amazing feature was that everyone took the caricaturing of his own race as a great joke. Caricature is, by the way, the correct word, for only the Irish girl most charmingly played by Miss Lorna Carroll, the Jewish boy, the priest and the rabbi, are in any sense real. The other roles were pure burlesque, although Mr. White as the old Jewish father, had moments of true dramatic power.

It is safe to predict that Abie's Irish Rose" will bloom for a long time in Boston. There is no reason to believe that jokes which have been considered funny since their infancy many, many years ago will suddenly lose flavor. And after all, none of the new jokes have lasted as long as the old ones have.