AMERICAN COMEDY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19768, 16 February 1927, Page 8

AMERICAN COMEDY

WHEN LAUGHTER RULES “IS ZAT SO?” WINS MANY LAUGHS. - t The Opera House, packed with people, J rocked to a gale of laughter last night, a ‘‘ls zat so?” the incredulous may en- 1 quire. And, ‘‘Yes, zat’s so,’’ is the cm- '• phatic answer. The play which convulsed theatre- * goers is a masterpiece in humour an J 1 originality. Of mystifying American J slang it possesses a liberal flavour— I so much that the programme includes I a glossary—but the aptness of the trite s Yankee observations condones their 1 coarse coDoquialism. i A beaten lightweight and his*dispirit- ( ed manager, and the drunken son of a. £ wealthy house —this trio sets things ( moving when the first curtain rises. * Into the story comes an unpleasant, 1 thoroughly objectionable individual, 1 one Parker; he squanders the fortune * of his -wife’s family, slanders the mem- ' ory of a dead soldier, and “squares” prize fights. Clinton Blackburn, his ' brother-in-law, is the bibulous youth of the opening scene. “Hap” Hurley (manager) and Eddie (“Chick”) Cowan, the defeated boxer, are his associates. When the partners of the squared ring accept domestic posts in Blackburn’s household they set in motion- the machinery which is ultimately to convict Parker of his many villainies; but before that goal is reached there are many misunderstandings. How all corues right is revealed between the laughs extracted in merry sequence by Hurley (Hale Norcross), Cowan (Richard Taber), and Major Fitz-Stanley (Douglas Vigors). Of these three principal comedians, Norcross is the outstanding genius, and is throughout the chief figure of the play. Of the others Barry Live'sey makes Clinton Blackburn a likeable chap, and Claud Saunders makes the unpopular Parker correspondingly unpleasant. Maude Carroll and Mary Ellen Hanley do excellent work in bringing the feminine interest into the atmosphere of the prize ring, and Daphne Bairn is convincingly worried as the lady afflicted by Parker’s wedding ring. The offspring of the couple, as ably played 1 by Master Bruce Walker, is a bright 1 infant. Realistic love-making, businesslike boxing matches, and a final enerj getic thrashing administered to the of--1 fensive Parker—these were potent m--3 gredients in the recipe for laughter. Thus “Is Zat So?” will be long and pleasantly remembered.