Location:
Theater:
Date:
Type:
The character sketch is simplicity itself, the several characters introduced in the Virginia court room depending for their force upon no illusion of stage setting, special makeup or dressing, but upon the sparkling wit of the speeches and Kelly’s pure art as a teller of dialect stories
The monologist has rare command of dialect. His negro talk is perfect in its smoothness, richness and fidelity, and his Italian and Irish almost as much so. The story of the Italian who warned the drunken Irishman who was looking over his bananas that "the green is no good," ranks among the best tales that have been sprung in a long time. The rest of the monologue is on a par with this sample for swift, unexpected and compelling humor.
Walter C. Kelly is perhaps the most distinctly American number. Beside the fact that Mr. Kelly himself is native to the States, his humor is characteristic- ally American in its spontaneity and directness, although it is anything but local in its appeal. Mr. Kelly gets away from all the beaten tracks of monologue work, a real achievement in a field so crowded
Source:
Variety 10:3 (10/19/1907)