CRIMSON PLAYGOER

The authors of "Tommy" Mosara, good, so they wrote a couple more acts. The impression is unmistakable--the play should have ended with the first act; and this despite the fact that the second and third acts are much more amusing than the first.

The leading man of this play, Mr. Leon Janney, self or publicity-director styled movie star, is a beautiful blonde baby-faced boy of an apparent sixteen years. Mr. Janney handicaps his baby face with a nasal contralto voice. Mr. Janney would have an unsuccessful play at the Copley Theatre in Boston in his debit column, were it not for the inimitable sang-froid of Mr. Jack Egan, who, as the all-human political boss of Katonsville, Maryland, steals the show from the rest of the Katonsvillians, and makes an evening spent at the Copley a vaguely good thing.

This thesis is expounded: a man can win a woman only through the subtle workings of that mysterious thing called Romance; and Romance is incompatible with parental approval of the match. Ergo. Mr. Leon Janney, favored by the adenoidal mother and the crustacean father of the big-hipped , must insult, get drunk, and make himself generally obnoxious before he can win their disfavor and the hand of the sought-for female. It all works out. The insufferable suitor Bernie, with his green and Yellow roadster and his blatant familiarities, is foiled in the end, and the baby-faced Tommy gains marriage and all it implies. Unhappy endings are only for tragedies, and this, we are told by the program, is a "scintillating comedy."

There are some low-comedy wisecracks which are not unamusing, and some which are; but the play is saved by Mr. Egan's ability to act, and gains through that the merit of not being a colossal bust.

The leading man of this play, Mr. Leon Janney, self or publicity-director styled movie star, is a beautiful blonde baby-faced boy of an apparent sixteen years. Mr. Janney handicaps his baby face with a nasal contralto voice. Mr. Janney would have an unsuccessful play at the Copley Theatre in Boston in his debit column, were it not for the inimitable sang-froid of Mr. Jack Egan, who, as the all-human political boss of Katonsville, Maryland, steals the show from the rest of the Katonsvillians, and makes an evening spent at the Copley a vaguely good thing.

This thesis is expounded: a man can win a woman only through the subtle workings of that mysterious thing called Romance; and Romance is incompatible with parental approval of the match. Ergo. Mr. Leon Janney, favored by the adenoidal mother and the crustacean father of the big-hipped , must insult, get drunk, and make himself generally obnoxious before he can win their disfavor and the hand of the sought-for female. It all works out. The insufferable suitor Bernie, with his green and Yellow roadster and his blatant familiarities, is foiled in the end, and the baby-faced Tommy gains marriage and all it implies. Unhappy endings are only for tragedies, and this, we are told by the program, is a "scintillating comedy."

There are some low-comedy wisecracks which are not unamusing, and some which are; but the play is saved by Mr. Egan's ability to act, and gains through that the merit of not being a colossal bust.

There are some low-comedy wisecracks which are not unamusing, and some which are; but the play is saved by Mr. Egan's ability to act, and gains through that the merit of not being a colossal bust.