than relating a "seven reeler" in the movies. The first act adopts that freedom of time so often used by film folk and juggles it back and forth with amazing switness. This is accomplished by means of darkening the stage and then have the hands of a large clock at the back of a pawn shop race merrily around to the desired place. At first it is rather disconcerting, but it serves to tell the audience that time has to be snatched away for dramatic exigencies and thus is perfectly allowable.

Act one is used to set the mystery by means of having a fur coat repeatedly sold, bought, pledged and re

MARGARET ILLINGTON Who Will Appear in a New Hopwood Play.

deemed, one after the other, and Act two, which we are informed takes place twenty minutes earlier, explains the action in the preceding scene. Then the act complicates itself so that the third act is looked forward to as a melting pot for all the complications. This last act is to some extent disappointing from a standpoint of technic. Instead of working out the intricacies of the plot new situations arise which

put the audience into a state of doubt, wondering whether it will ever be worked out successfully and end happily, as all farces of this kind should.

Maud Hanaford, playing the part of Hazel Conners, a stenographer in a law office, appealed to us best. She played her part splendidly, adding a bit of pathos to this otherwise ludicrous piece. Tom Wise bubbled over with good humor and with his wouldbe serious remarks he kept a wave of laughter going over the house whenever he was on the stage. Louise Dresser and John Lewis should receive commendation for their excellent work and Hyman Adler played his part with a realism which brought forth the plaudits of the audience.

We are indeed pleased with this new offering. It provides for the city sojourner pleasing recreation for a summer's evening, being neither too long nor too heavy to require any great exertion of mental energy to keep up with the action.

Re-Viewing

the "Follies"

T

HE Ziegfeld Follies, which all theatregoers look forward to each Summer with much anticipation still holds forth at the New Amsterdam Theatre. It seems that this production is one of the few which the public will go to in spite of the warm weather. When other theatre managers close down their houses because of the hot weather, Mr. Ziegfeld sees fit to open his up with a live, entertaining travesty on the important things in the world of pleasure for the past season.

This is Mr. Ziegfeld's tenth season at producing the Follies and, like all other things when they have gone a decade, a review of the former years is very much in order. Hence the Follies Girls from 1907 to 1916 are presented in all the glory of her year. The main theme, if we can call it that, is grouped about the Immortal Bard of Avon, and much humor is gotten out of this great poet's

There are some theatregoers who prefer a tragedy, some a comedy, while some like the lighter offerings. The The Follies is, without hesitation, placed in the last class, but everyone, regardless of the class they belong in, should set aside for one evening their likes and dislikes and go to the Follies if but to view the scenic effects. From the brush of Joseph Urban comes a new type of scenery, painted with such skill, with such attractiveness and vividness that even the seasoned playgoer is seen to look at the different scenes, as they are put on, in wonder and admiration. We can safely say that the scenery of the Follies

this year is the best that has ever been presented. It fits in with the action. Every piece means something. As Mr. Urban said in an interview with a WORLD COURT reporter recently, "The new way of setting the stage of a theatre is quite different than the old way. There is greater reason in it—more sense. For instance, we find not the place on our stage for anything which is not really related to the action."

The Follies will probably continue in New York until early in September, when they will go on tour and give other cities an opportunity to view this wonderful production.

"I

WISH I knew how to scream in print," says Ruth Shepley, who plays the part of that little cut-up, Grace Tyler, in "The Boomerang," the season's greatest hit, at the Belasco Theatre, "I'd certainly do it. Two hours of work a day and then nothing to do until to-morrow! Or, rather, twenty-four hours of work a day and then nothing to do until the next day, when there are twenty-four more hours of work. An 'exquisite existence'!

"At the risk of some of you believing I do not love my work-which I dothat I am dissatisfied with my careerwhich I am not-or that I am just naturally a complainer-Heaven forbid!I am going to unburden myself.

"I wonder if people know what the life of an actress means the real life back of the stage? Do they realize we must isolate ourselves from the world at large; that we must guard against friendships that tend to establish an intimacy with our public; and that even if the rules of the game did not forbid, we couldn't have friends-because we haven't time for them? Do you sup

pose the public understands our eternal struggle to conserve our voices, health and looks, the loss of any one of which would throw us into the discard?

"Do they know we are always in the thick of a never-ending battle for supremacy, in an overcrowded field, and no rules to the game? For when some women set their minds on a career, there's nothing short of murder they'll stop at. High finance is child's play in comparison.

"Do you theatregoers, who go to see 'The Boomerang' over and over again -which seems to be the fashion!-appreciate that we must subserve either our work or our love or fail at both, that often we must give up one or the other -that experience has proved they don't mix?

"Do you ever think of us as giving half of our time and a great deal of our money to the photographers, the masseuses, the hairdressers, the modistes, the milliners, the beauty specialists, the bootmaker, the manicurists? Why? Simple enough we are under observation every minute of the day. When the

ter what your ability as an actress, you must bolster it with some outside quality. Then the press-agent does the rest. How I love him-and hate him! Either he proclaims you a beauty-and throughout the rest of your career you must disappoint a lot of persons who come to see if he is right; or else he announces to the world that you are about the bestdressed woman on the stage-and keeps you in poverty the rest of your natural existence buying clothes to live up to that reputation.

"You are in a turmoil. Some new actress of your particular style and manner gets a better part than you, and she begins coming to the fore. She copies your gowns, she used your tricks of speech and gesture, but-she has a better part and because she has a better part, you soon get the reputation of copying her!

"And this thing of parts! Do you know that two or three unsuccessful plays will erase your name from the public blackboard? Do you know that an unlikable part, even if it be in the most successful play of the season, will hang with you the rest of your career? People seldom, almost never, consider the part-they blame you.

"Did you ever think of the long hours at rehearsal, for which you are not paid, in plays that may or may not succeed? Or have you considered that the greatest actress in the city may be kept 'at liberty' for months because her managers can't find a play with a part she can do to her credit-and to their credit?

"Fame,' my friend said-but a fleeting, bromo-seltzer sort of fame, once obtained, more easily lost; for it is far easier to attain prominence than it is to keep it. 'Money!' Did you ever hear of a rich actress? No; for it isn't done these days. Too many frocks to buy; too many appearances to keep up whether you can afford them or notfor you are a successful actress, you know; too many servants to pay—just too much of everything.

"Time? Why, I have yearned for, a season for a fish dinner, but I haven't the time. For a year I wanted to be a human being, and go window-shoppingbut when?—I haven't the time.

"For, you see, I am an actress. And actresses have no time for such things. Particularly so in Mr. Belasco's neverending hit, 'The Boomerang,' which has compelled me to make my real home in the Belasco Theatre for a full year!"

entious service and the ability to see the other person's needs are the hooks upon which we hang our business ambitions."

As I walked away overflowing with the enthusiasm which I had caught from these two young women of the business world, I concluded that that where there is work to be done it makes little difference whether it is

done by man or woman if it is done properly. Here is an instance where women are doing what has hertofore been known as "man's work," and they are doing it well. I also decided that the next time I receive an insurance card in my office I shall take time to observe the broker's name presenting it.

PHILIPPA.

"Straight America," by Frances A. Kellor, published by Macmillan Company, New York, fifty cents.

Before going into a review of the book a passing glimpse of Miss Kellor's past activities might be interesting and in addition explain the writing of such a book.

A graduate of Cornell University Law School, Miss Kellor followed a course which brought her in close. touch with the people, not alone the people who are native Americans, but

the immigrants. She has served as treasurer of the New York State Immigration Commission un

der Governor Hughes, chief investigator of the State Bureau of Industries and Immigration and as a member of the New York city conference on unemployment. Her present work, as editor of the Immigrants in America Review has enabled her to study "people" and has fitted her to do the work she is now engaged in.

Republican platform running through the chapters and an occasional, cleverly disguised hit at our present policy. It comes to us with little surprise, therefore, that Miss Kellor is going to be deep in politics this coming year and is already working with the Hughes Alliance as Directing Head of the Woman's National Committee.

"Straight America" is divided into six chapters, each one treating a different phase of the question of Americanism, developing the case, using the Immigration Question as the backbone around which the rest of the book is