Variety (November 1907)

V A KI E TY 11 THE CANDY KID. When a young man with a jauntily set cap, nicely smoothed down bangs, a de- bonair air, and a diamond encircled shirt- stud can foil the villain, hold up four men with an unloaded shotgun, save the girl from abduction, and then calmly walk down to the footlights singing a solo to the young woman he saved, all in a matter- of-fact way, without pause, don't you sup- pose it would be funny? Well, it is funny; screamingly so. "Musical Melodrama" must be funny any- way. At least "The Candy Kid" is. It gives amusement, and lots of it, during the three or four acts where the hero must be a sing- ing comedian also, besides tearing up things in general. "Little Johnny Jones" must have given the impetus to the musical melodrama craze. Anyone walking in on "The Gandy Kid" expecting to find the old time "thun- der-and-blood" would be disappointed. He receives instead singing, laughs, comedy and thrills, all nicely written out and joined together. "The Candy Kid" is a "hew melodrama with music," book and lyrics written by Lem B. Parker. W. R. Williams composed the music, about the best thing in the show. It is under the management of Kilroy & Britton. The piece is playing the "com- bination" houses. Last week it was in New York. From the size of the attend- once the night it was seen, it may be here jet. The greatest drawback to one of these plays, in its bid for patronage, is that the managers do not bill it right. WTiy not bo honest, come right out and advertise the show as the greatest laugh producer en the Hrrtrtt? Perhaps the actors won't like it, but the truthful description would draw many people in who want to laugh only. You'll laugh at "The Candy Kid." The mystery is how the principals prevent them- selves from giggling all the time. But they are so serious. With the exception of Wanda Ludlow, the heroine, everybody on the stage gave the impression he or she was acting. Miss Ludlow seems to have a sense of humor. When the audience vocif- erously applauded a heroic speech. Miss Ludlow could not restrain the smile ; when Ray Raymond as "The Candy Kid" sang his solo "I'd Like to Feather a Nest for You," Miss Ludlow actually laughed right out. It just struck home, that laugh of hers, for the moment you commence to be- lieve the people on the .stage had full knowl- edge of the junk they were handing out, you weren't so angry. Instead of follow- ing the piece thereafter, one commences to estimate what each receives weekly, and wonders how many actors and actresses there are in the world besides those not working. There couldn't possibly be any good ac- complished by telling or attempting to de- scribe the plot of "The Candy Kid." Prob- ably it is similar to a great many others, and what's the use anyway of ever wasting time on something immaterial. If a story is poor enough to be funny, that's different; but "The Candy Kid'* can't be much out of the beaten path of melodramatic themes, although you never know what it is about. About the funniest line occurs in the first act. Taylor Bennett is the villainous vil- lain, and this boy can go some when it comes to digging up schemes for dirty work. As he enters, Alice Bolton, who is the villainess, exclaims "you're a sight." Alice means Mr. Bennett's clothes are dis- arranged, but the understanding is that Alice sent that line two ways, and prob- ably intended it for a few others in the company. But Alice is not a "sight" herself. She la the dressiest thing you ever saw. Talk about a burlesque soubrette changing cos- tume. Alice has it on the best of them. She changed her dress every time she got a chance, and that happened often in the first two acts. Along the second or third scene in the third act, Miss Bolton's ward- robe must have become exhausted. Then she wore a red automobile coat, and as she didn't j change that, the audience reached the conclusion Alice was all in on clothes. It didn't look just right either to have Alice pose as the fashion plate, and leave Wanda Ludlow to hustle along in two skimpy costumes, especially when Ray Ray- mond owns two suits of clothes. There is a chorus of five girls, and they have several costumes, but it's, what you call "cheap dressing." Very cheap—so cheap it is irksome, even if you don't won- der where under the sun they dug the girls up from. Besides these young women in a casual instance or so, there are four young men. The girls and boys have "numbers," and when appearing as "nurse-maids and police- men" they*were in right. The boys are "The Regent Quartet" when they are nothing else. As an "act" they sing in "one," having the essence of "barber shop harmony." Two parts were well played, that of Hiram Hopkins, an elderly farmer (Rich- ard C. Maddox), and his wife, Kitty Hop- kins (Mattie Edwards). Both were meri- torious, but Mr. Maddox sang wme paro- dies in the second scene of the first act. After that, it was all off. You were fright- ened to death each time he showed up that Mr. Maddox would "pull" some more parodies. He didn't, but the fear equaled the reality. Mr. Raymond in the title role of "The Candy Kid" did too much. It was all made so easy for him by the author. When there were no rescues to be made, Mr. Ray- mond wore a tired look. One would be willing to swear he would throw a child under a trolley car, jump over it. and res- cue the "kid" from the other side just to keep in practice if the show closed. Raymond affects Geo. Cohan in his musical work and strut. There being no soubrette, Mr. Raymond virtually combines that part in his role of hero. % As the villain Taylor Bennett is always on the spot, in league with and against William J. Maddern, a naval officer, who leads a "baseball number." "The Candy Kid" put on at an "Ama- teur Night" show around New York would cause a riot, but the people who thirst for the thrilling with a musical offset sit back in their seats and thrill. The "big scene" is at the conclusion of the third act. although before that time "rescues" galore had been made. Through the foarful acting and machinations of Bennett, Wanda has been abducted, and placed upon a steamer bound for a South American country. "The Candy Kid" Is there, though. The gangplank has been thrown off, when he rushes up a ladder, grabs the baggage-crane, swings over to the "boat, grabs Wnndfl"; tnoy both grab THE GIRLS OF HOLLAND. It's a pity they changed the name from "The Snow Man" to "The Girls of Hol- land," the original title offering such a rare opportunity for punning. Since the Shubert Brothers saw fit to stage a book from which all the fun had been extracted, they might have left this way open for the audience to furnish its own comedy. Even in a theatrical season of desiccated musical comedy books, "The Girls of Hol- land" at the Lyric win unenviable dis- tinction. The ponderous witticisms of Stanislaus^ Stange (who wrote the book) are as enlivening and diverting as a whole- sale hardware catalogue. The daily paper reviewers left nothing to be said in adverse criticism of Harry Macdonough. They started by calling him "a bad comedian," and from that founda- tion reared wondrous verbal structures of fine-wrought similes to the same effect. One went even so far, in a burst of in : spired vituperation, as to say that he was almost as bad as Jefferson De Angelis. A stony-hearted lot, these critics, utterly without the milk of human kindness. Macdonough is a bad comedian and it is perhaps a just decree that cuts him off frem human sympathy, but the sight of Mr. Macdonough murmuring Stange's sec- ond hand repartee might have softened them. Angels would have wept to hear Mm say, "Jump into the well and kick the bucket" and then pause with a look of wistful expectancy for the laugh-that- never-came. That wasn't the worst thing he said either. Here are a few other flowers of wit culled from memory: Carrie E. Perkins—Follow me, my bridle mate. Macdonough—She thinks I*m a torse. E. M. Favor—What is a wife? Macdonough—Well, generally speaking, a wife is—er—er—well, generally speaking. Miss Perkins—Put your arm around my waist. Macdonough—(Business of doing same) I'm wasting time. What can you say about such stuff with only the English language and a typewriter as a medium of expression? Perhaps a large active man with a club could do justice to the situation. All that a check book and a fountain pen could do for the show has been done. The fifty or so girls who make up the "merry villagers," and the saturnine ehor- usmen to the number of fifteen or more are dressed in satin and brocade within an inch of their lives, and in utter disregard of the Shubert bankroll. And those girls! Dozens and dozens the crane and swing back 1o safety, away from the clutches of the monster. Did it pet a yell? To see the two "stars" escape from the boat is worth going miles ami miles and miles. But some night or perhaps at a matinee if Miss Wanda doesn't practice a little on the horizontal bars, she will injure her spinnl column through that swing. But, then they could get another. Plenty for any part in the show. Anyway, it's musical melodrama, and if you have never seen one, go once, if you never go again. The chances are, though, it will become a habit. Bime. of them in a never-ending revel of, prim* prettiness. And who d'you suppose right in the middle of the bunch, as neat and sprightly as the best of 'em? None other than the plump little blond that afore- time cavorted with and beat the cymbals for the "Military Octet" in vaudeville. Al Holbrook staged the piece. The pity of it is that he spent his time and talent in so hopeless a cause. He seems to have a genius for gorgeous stage pictures, and spectacular chorus effects. When the li- brettist left the stage to him, he trans? formed it into a garden of beauty. Reginald De Koven has supplied plenty of music. Numbers tread on each other's heels. Most of the score is neat and catchy and wins spontaneous applause, but it lives no longer than the hand-claps. A notable exception is "My All Time Girl," which, has the elements of brief popularity. This was allotted to Harry Farleigh, whose musical voice and intelligent treatment of a wooden part, made him by long odds the most acceptable member of the organr ization. "Why Is It?" by Macdonough and Ed- ward M. Favor, had a first rate jingling swing to it, and the topical verses got it a hearing. These and "D*Amour" by Vera Michelena were the best liked. The score would have run better with a few vaudeville people to deliver it with an occasional dance. None of the prin- cipals can dance. Macdonough executes certain elephantine steps and Mary Nash, Ellen Tate and Leona Stevens coquette with their skirts, but from curtain to cur- tain there is not a lively dance in the whole proceedings. The songs go entirely without incidental "business," except for the silly clowning of Macdonough and Favor and a quantity of barnyard humor by the former as part of "The Rooster and the Lark" in the last act. Favor re- sembles Macdonough closely. They are birds of a feather. In the second act they are concerned in an exchange of funniments running more or less like this: "Do you know what I am going to <Jo with you?" "Yes." "Then I will tell you." And all the rest of the familiar "five minutes of uproarious fun" that goes with it in those humorous books in which are also incorporated "two screaming comedy sketches, suitable for parlor entertain- ments; a fifteen-minute monologue and as- sorted tricks of magic and legerdemain for twenty-five cents." The women of the cast are much better— they couldn't well be otherwise. Miss Michelena has a brilliant soprano voice and a figure that in justice to Miss Michelena and her eorsetioro I will not attempt to describe. Moreover, she has tho supreme virtue of not taking herself seri- ously as a stage beauty. Her awkward reading and lack of animation, however, cost her heavily. I^eona Stevens possessed a certain pi- quancy that won her notice above the others, and Erla Rottger and Louisa Mon- tague got their names in type along with the principals for no good and sufficient reason. Ruth.' Fay, Coley and Fay played three houses (fwo shows each) last Sunday. They "scooted" from the Colonial to the Yort- ville and up to Ifurtig & Seamon's 125fh Street with the aid of an automobile.