Mrs. Gene Hughes and Co.

The new comedy, by Edgar Allen Woolf, is entitled "Lady Gossip." The story deals with the cat-like life of society women. It opens with two women in street dresses having tea. The hostess does not appear so they help themselves to tea and cake. While they sip their "Oolong," they most graciously "knock" their hostess. They form a bit of scandal in their minds about the number of visits to the home of Mrs. Nellie Breckenridge by a certain influential senator. As things progress Nellie (Mrs. Hughes) enters. The women greet her with their sweetest tones. A man is behind one of the portiers at the window has hear all the gossip. Nellie announces a dinner party for that evening so the women go home to change. The man comes out of his hiding spot. The ensuing conversation is about securing some letters form the Senator so that a big graft deal can not be put through, which, if completed, would cost the government several million dollars. The man leaves and she changes to evening dress. Nellie receives word that her daughter, at a convent, was contemplating eloping with a chauffeur. While she is in the other room a little miss enters but does not give her name. It is Mrs. Breckenridge's daughter. The mother decides to keep her daughter's identity hidden and introduce her at the dinner party as a friend. The two other women return and the gossip follows. The title of the piece comes into play when Nellie calls the "Scandal Magazine" on the phone and gives them the recent gossip. It is put in the paper under the head of "Lady Gossip." The daughter returns, seeing her sweetheart with her mother and is greatly enraged at him. A note found in the folds of a child's dress belonging to the daughter reveals that one of the women gossips had been the cause for much of the Breckenridge family's trouble. The final scene has the daughter in the arms of her lover and her mother declaring for the downfall of gossip. Russell G. Randall is the only man in the cast. Adele Potter is the daughter. The other women are merely used as ornaments and to wear clothes.

Mrs. Hughes has some funny dialog with some quick retorts that have some snap. The rest of the company will do.

Variety 36:1 (09/04/1914)