Edith Browning and Co.

Location:
Date:
18 Mins.; Full Stage. Two women and a man are the principals in this sketch of the popular melodramatic heart-interest type that always goes over in the smaller houses. There is the deserted wife who is left with a baby; the comedy Irish woman (in this particular case the usual janitress and the foreigner, an Italian second-hand furniture dealer) always the one engaged to the comedy character woman. Deserted wife is bewailing her solitary and destitute fate when janitress enters. “baby will die because I have not the money to buy milk to feed him.: is the speech, and then there is nothing for the C.C.W. to do except steal the milk from the dumb-waiter and obtain the good will of those in front of a laugh or two. The Y.D.W. then relates the tale of her early life and also shows how she was brought to her present plight and then C.C.W. again comes to the front and offers her a home. The man enters the scene accompanied by the C.C.W. He is to buy the furniture from the Y.D.W. is willing to marry him and she exists to change to wedding gown. In the meantime Y.D.W. returns and discovers that the man is her uncle and there is a clinch and the C.C.W. walks in on it, explanations follow and a comedy finish. The act is small timey from start to finish and the role of the Young Deserted Wife is poorly played.
Source:
Variety, Volume XXXVI, no.12, November 21, 1914