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Storytelling.
"Issie Cohen of Hester Street."
Though new as a vaudeville monologist, the art of telling stories was accomplished quite some time ago by Leo Donnelly. As a youth his favorite sport was entertaining club fellows.
Then he gravitated to Broadway, but instead of entering vaudeville he found a rather permanent position in the comedy division of the legitimate stage. Last summer when America's Over There Theatre League was formed, he was among the first to volunteer and in the first contingent sent to amuse the American doughboys in France. The program states he was "the first professional entertainer" to go overseas for the A. E. F., which might, in justice to others, be changed slightly and made to read that he was with the first units. It is correct that he entertained New York's famous 77th Division, one time actually on the front line , during its advance in the Argonne Forest. A slide states Mr. Donnelly was in the St Mihiel drive and the advance along the Meuse. Doubtless his service abroad revived his gift for story telling. Some of his comments concerned things over there, but he started out with satire
anent prohibition, treating with various elements of spirits and saying that every cloud had a silver lining, in this case that being moonshine. Also he kidded a bit about Philadelphia, his
home town. A rhyme on "America an Automobile," figuratively, in the war brought in noted personalities. For a finish he landed another verse written in dedication of the 77th. It tells of
a heroic little Jewish dispatch runner during the battle of the Argonne. The rhyme is called "Issie Cohen of Hester Street," and is a ringing bit of work splendidly given. Mr. Donnelly is rapid in style, not waiting for laughs. In fact, his idea appears not so much to secure laughs as to entertain, and in that he succeeds.
Source:
Variety, 54:7 (04/11/1919)