Will Oakland and Co.

Singing.

"When the Clock Strikes One." "A Breath of Old Ireland" and "Boy of Mine."

Will Oakland billed as having a "contra tenor" voice, is offering his songs with a surrounding of talk and playlet in which he is assisted by Marie Brenner. Andy Rice wrote the turn and while the monologistic section is bright enough, it isn't consistent with the later portion. A drop showing the exterior of the Greenroom Club has a scrim window, disclosing Oakland, who is singing presumably to club fellows, but who looks out of the window and faces the audience. He delivers two numbers in that practically motionless position, the first; '"A Breath of Old Ireland," and the other "Boy of Mine." Exiting through the club doorway with lights up, Oakland chatters of liquor and wives and how curious it is that a husband must ship a lot of the former to tell his pals how good the latter is. He ends that section by saying that he has to be home when the clock strikes one or stand the consequences from his better fraction. So he invites the audience along with him. Into full stage a plush hung interior discloses a gray- haired woman, his mother and not his wife, wherein is the inconsistency of the talk. Oakland asks mother, to meet his friends, this again meaning' the audience. Mother says they should be at home and in bed. He says they are there with their wives, which brings about the query as to whose wives. Oakland finishes with two mother songs, with talk to separate them. The turn won several curtains. The hangings and stage dress furnish a rich interior and because of the mother appeal it will hit to pop audiences, but it is decidedly doubtful whether it can deliver in big company.

Variety, 54:12 (05/16/1919)