Emma Carus

Singing, comic dialogue, and piano accompaniment.

"Your Home Town."

Not since she belted "Make a Noise Like a Hoop" across the plate has Emma Carus worked as whole-heartedly and as smashingly as she does in her new act with Walter Leopold (formerly Lewis and Leopold) at the piano. Leopold is a cross between a "partner" and an accompanist, just the right combination. When Miss Carus worked with only an orchestra, in the old days, in "one," she failed to cameo herself as she can with her own pianist to play for her, to be talked at and to help dress the stage. When she divided with a full-fledged stage partner she took away from her own individuality and personality, as it was natural that she could not engage a male Carus for support, and therefore, had to mold her own almost unlimited talents with the sparse possibilities of some bush-league male. Standing out in the present turn, next only to the utter perfection of spirit and aplomb which Miss Carus has regained, is her "line of talk." She now uses not less than 8 minutes of monolog convulsing as well as convincing. It gets away from the line-for-line gagging, with a cracker at each pause for breath. It is consecutive and consistent, grammatical and respectable and it is psychological of the moment, dealing in whimsical serio-comics with the prospects ahead of the nation when it goes dry. Jack Lait wrote it, as she proudly announces. To a flip house the monolog will prove one of the vaudeville tid-bits of the season, and its skillful maneuvering to get Leopold off on a laugh which starts her talk and bring him back on a scream which leads back into her songs, is a bit of craftsmanship which makes of the talking feature a smooth elision instead of the interruption. Wardrobed to the queen's taste, Miss Carus opens with "Your Home Town," then into the talk, then into a number in which she does a "shimmy" so well once cannot say whether she is kidding her taking her dancing seriously. She exits for a change and Leopold sings a ballad in a voice of caliber, masculinity and appeal. Then comes the Irish number, with the "business" which Miss Carus originated and made hers alone, despite numerous imitations. For encores a new song by Leopold, "You're Killin' Me," goes for a bang. A duet dance with Leopold, who is a versatile party, lets her down to the brief calisthenics, with laughs, which she has made familiar since she became nationally famous as a reducer and gave point to her discussions of embonpoint. And the higher she takes this act the more will she get back, as it is essentially metropolitan in its flavor, atmosphere and expressions.

Variety, 53:7 (01/10/1919)