Folk Play

Frankie and Johnnie. On its way to

Chicago last week after eastern road tryouts was a play adapted by John M. Kirkland from the tale, long told in U. S. folksong, of the tragic triangle of Frankie, Johnnie and Nellie Bly. Composed of a series of simple quatrains, the song has been altered and elaborated by so many artists, including John Barleycorn, that no one person can ever have heard or imagined all its verses. Yet the basic story has simple, tragic dignity which does not depend on the length or bawdiness which always characterize its rendition. Frankie was a harlot. Johnnie was her man. But Johnnie loved Nellie Bly. So Frankie shot her man. "He was her man, but he done her wrong," explains every refrain. The verse at which singers usually break down in tears goes:

Roll me over easy, Roll me over slow,

Roll me over on my left side,

'Cause my right side hurts me so.

Playwright Kirkland's scene is the Alton House, St. Louis. The year is 1849. The story as he tells it grows sluggish in the time required of a three-act play. This is mainly due to two long soliloquies by Frankie in the second act.