Austin Webb and Co.

Dialogue.

Next were the Austin Webb and Co., two people besides the principal, in "Champagne and Buttermilk," written by John B. Hymer. It's a new playlet for Mr. Webb, with a pressed in plot that forces the story into illogical channels, but gives room for a sort of "surprise" anti-climax, when the country girl brought up on buttermilk and wanting to run away to New York, wheedles $20 from the tired business man from the metropolis who is seeking her section of the countryside for rest. Upon securing the twenty the girl informs the man the last New Yorker gave her fifty. The skit needs more body at the finish, but the playlet is not nearly as good as the players. Mr. Webb lives a finished perform, once in a badly constructed role, and the young woman playing the country girl is very convincing. A valet character is the other role. Mr. Webb may go along with this piece. He won't have much trouble with a more fitting ending, though just what time may accept it is problematical, but Mr. Webb should procure another medium. He and the young woman are too strong as players to waste themselves in a mediocre piece of vaudeville writing that must always be a gamble tor laughs. It has not even the merit of sure firedness, although Mr. Hymer is concededly one of vaudeville's best writers for this kind of a skit. But it seems here as though Mr. Hymer may have touched it up only. There is too much plot crowded into the sketch for its time and manner of working out. If Mr. Webb ever concludes to throw it away, he might first sell it for a two-reel comedy scenario. It would be worth something as that but the players here also make it worth something for vaudeville.

Variety, 53:13 (02/21/1919)