* * * * *
"Daddy Long-Legs."
_Daddy Long-Legs_ is a pleasant American sentimental comedy made by JEAN
WEBSTER out of her very jolly book, and not so sticky as some of our
importations of the same general type. The four Acts are phases in the
development of _Judy_ (or _Jerusha_) _Abbott_, orphan; and, as normally
happens in book-plays, development is extremely abrupt. Act I. shows us
_Judy_ as the drudge of the orphanage breaking into flame of rebellion
on the day of the visit of the trustees. Naturally the trustees are all
trustees _pour rire_, except one real good rich man, _Jervis Pendleton_,
who admires the orphan's spirit, and decides that she is to have her
chance at his charges; but is on no account to know her benefactor.
In Act II., a year later, _Judy_ is not merely the most popular but the
best dressed girl in her college. She still dreams about her unknown
benefactor, whom she calls _Daddy Long-Legs_, and assumes to be a hoary
old man. _Pendleton_ comes to Commem., or its equivalent, to have a peep
at his ward, and loses his heart. In the Third Act, three years later,
our heroine is a famous author, and _Pendleton_, coming (still incog.)
to propose, is refused by a _Judy_ who has taken to worrying unduly (and
not altogether convincingly, if you ask me) about her lack of family.
And, of course, in Act IV., wedding bells.
Miss RENÉE KELLY has a charming personality, and a smile which alone is
worth going to see. She trounced the matron and the incredible trustees
with a fierce fury, and seemed to have easy command of the changes of
mood and tense which her fast-moving circumstances required. A pretty
twinkling star. Mr. CHARLES WALDRON is a skilful actor. If he, perhaps,
grimaced a little too much by way of not letting us miss the obvious
points of the little mystery, he made as admirable a proposal of
marriage as I have ever heard on the stage (or off it for that matter,
with perhaps one exception); but to suppose that so accomplished a lover
would accept a mere mournful shake of the head as a final refusal is
simply too absurd. Miss FAY DAVIS made quite a little triumph of gentle
gracious kindliness out of one of those potentially tiresome explanatory
parts without which no mystifications can be contrived. Miss KATE JEPSON
is a comédienne of rich grain, and gave a very amusing study of the
hero's old nurse. Miss JEAN GADELL, that clever specialist in dour
unpleasant stage women, made a properly repulsive thing out of the
matron of the orphanage. Mr. HYLTON ALLEN scored his points as a comic
lover with droll effect. If the distinctly clever children of the home
(_Judy_ excepted) had been effectively put on the contraband list I
should not have worried. They were unduly noisy (for art, not for life
perhaps), and they overdid their parts, being not only rowdy in the
absence, and abject in the presence, of authority, but different kinds
of children--not merely the same children in two moods.
Altogether a pleasant play pleasantly and competently performed.