85 Mins. (Special Settings). “The New Sunnyside.” Max Bloom has taken his old vehicle known as “The Sunnyside of Broadway,” added new scenery, new people, new costumes and has made of it a neat, swift and comical little musical comedy. It is a corking good laughing show, with not a dull minute. It has variety also, in good dancing numbers. There is not much plot to the show, but there is so much liveliness and loveliness displayed that this is not a handicap. Mr. Bloom, seen in a Hebraic character, carries the burden of the comedy although George Browning and Louis Swan, who get into the semblance of a horse and cavort over the stage in a ludicrous manner, get a smother of laughs early. Alice Sherr does some effective work and is at her best in a sensational dance near the close, assisted by George Browing. She wears a smashing creation consisting of red tights, a black gauze gown with a sort of tunic of spangles. Inez Belaire, a Chicago young woman, appears here and there and adds a very nice specialty in a whistling number. The show is almost one continuous laugh, closing with burlesques on “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the old fashioned war drama which are distinguished by some very good pieces of business in the way of travesty.
14 Mins.; One. This blackface team is seen in an entirely new vehicle, which, however, follows somewhat in the line of what they have done hitherto in vaudeville. One is short and dapper and the other tall and lanky, with a sort of Bert Williams style of humor, and yet not patterned after him at all. The men come on after the sound of pistol shots back stage. It is explained they have been in a “crap” game, and the dapper little one has made away with all the money, leaving the lanky one to fight it out with the belligerent darkies who remain. A comedy razor is used with laughable effect, and a crap game played in the footlights is another good laugh. The little one has a song and later the tall one ambles on in a woman’s gown, and there follows a travesty on the modern dance. The act closes with a quaint dance, while the men play harmonicas. Both have a rich dialect, redolent of the southern darkey. They offered a lugubrious joke or two about a medical college and a cadaver, which might be eliminated. The act is a fine one for small or middle time, and at the Lincoln Hippodrome it seemed to hit the audience right in their funny bones. The men depend a little too much on realism, and their own native wit, but when they have worked the act out a little more, it will be a sure winner.
“Home Again” 40 Mins.; One and Full Stage. The merry little musical skit gives the Four Marx Brothers opportunity to do some very effective work in their several lines. They all have talent, and they shine in this piece which allows them to display their own brand of rollicking humor in which they excel. There is but little plot to the piece. The story concerns Henry Schneider (Julius Marx) who is returning with his family and friends from a voyage across the ocean. The scene opens in “one” with the party on the dock after disembarking. There is a flirtatious soubrette mixed up in the affair who has been on the boat, and Schneider, who is suspectable, has fallen for her charms, much to the anger of Mrs. Schneider, Milton Marx is seen as Harold Schneider whose chief work is to look handsome, which he does without question. Leonard Marx is seen in an Italian character, and is specialty at the piano, in which he does comic things which his hands and fingers, in one of the best features. He gets a laugh about every minute, is at ease and graceful, and makes good all the time. Arthur Marx is billed as a “nondescript.” He is made up as a “boob” and his makeup is not pleasant. He gets a good many laughs, but a change should be made in his character. He plays the harp well, and does some comedy with the strings that is in a class by itself. Songs are interspersed and modern dances introduced to round out the second part of the show where the people are engaged in a frolic at a house party at the home of the Schneider’s. At the close, the young people all get into a boat and move off the stage with a rousing chorus. Then follows a pretty scene wherein the boat is seen going down the river in the distance. There are times with the members of the company do not seem to have quiet enough to do, but these things with doubtless be remedied in time. The chorus work is good, with many good voices in the ensemble. Al. Shean wrote and staged the piece, and Minnie Palmer presents it At the Lincoln Hip. where it was the Sunday feature it went over very big with many encores demanded. It looks like a good piece of property.
The revue was In sight for a half hour,
the girls getting the most applause on
the football number In which the audience
was used.
Special drop.
Contortion feats and special stage setting.
