New Plays

Spring Fever. The first production in many weeks that has not been definitely distressing moved in last week to tell a tale of golf and tender passions. I: is true that the latter toughened up a trifle in the final act when Mr. A. H. Woods pulled one of his laciest beds out of storage and gave the public what he found it wanted long ago. The scene was often in bad taste and quite irrelevant to the rest. Like the rest, however, it loosed a light supply of laughter.

The hero of this exhibition is a shipping clerk who mixes up his adverbs and can get 300 yards from the tee. In return for curing his round employer's slice, he gains a guest card to the latter's country club. He drops a spoon shot on a lady's backbone and, while apologizing, falls in love. Advertised by his host as the heir to $80,000,000, he wins the lady. Her indignation is extensive when, in a hotel room, he reports his penury, a condition which renders her in his eyes and in her nightgown none the less beautiful.

James Rennie (clerk), Joseph Kilgour (employer) and Marion Coakley play the trio of niblick addicts. None of them swings very well, but they are all attractive, particularly Miss Coakley, and all amusing, particularly Mr. Kilgour.

The Little Poor Man. One of the

many schools of the Theatre tried a new twist with this one. They hired a few professional actors and filled the other parts with pupils, thus giving the latter the privilege of appearing, as advertised, in a Broadway production. For this purpose they chose a poetical prize play on the life of St. Francis of Assisi. A goodly portion of the audience the opening night were parents of those concerned. It is likely that succeeding audiences, if any. will be similarly composed.

June Days. Chicago seemed to approve this musical comedy for many weeks. Possibly it was different out there.

Except for Elizabeth Hines and an acrobatic group of chorus girls, the piece is a dire error. It has been adapted from Alice Duer Miller's The Charm School with sedulous aridity of wit. There have been dozens of musical comedies with weak books and strong ankles but few with the contrasts so sharp. If you can stand stretches of ramblings unrelieved to watch Miss Hines and the chorus, now and then, you may like it.

Possibly things might have been better lacking Roy Royston. He plays the young man who inherits a young ladies' boarding school and attempts to operate it on individual lines. Mr. Royston seems terribly sure that he is funny. That is where he is wrong.