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GOODWINS WEEKLY 11 fants as though she were really their mother, confesses the deceit for love's sake, Alfred for gives her, Jimmy is released and the farce is done. Are you a suburban dweller and do you have to go to town by an early train? Are your an noyances before, during and after your breakfast like these? You didn't come home last, night till along towards morning because you had a long supper with some former college chums. So you haven't slept half enough when your a'arm clock rings. You don't get up and next you know there is only half an hour to dress, eat and get to the railway station. Five minutes at the wash bowl and mirror, five at putting on clothes and you get to the dining room with only twenty left. That is the start of the fun in "The Commu ters." I won't go on assuming that you, my mas culine reader, are like the commuter in this farce, for he gets petulent with his nice little wife be cause breakfast isn't on the table awaiting him; and you wouldn't do that when the cook hadn't come back from her aunt's funeral and the wife had done the best she could in the kitchen. He was exasperated, though, by having mislaid his shirt studs which she had to go up to his room to find and by losing his shoes which she pointed out to him on his feet under the table. And he scolded because she laughed. Also, for not discharging the tardy cook, who gave him scorched ham, no eggs and weak coffee. Orrin Johnson is the explosive husband in this new play and May de Sousa, until now a showgirl in extravaganza, the enduring young wife; and they make a pair too handsome to quarrel; but they do when she twits him of having overslept in a snooze of booze. They stop that, however, when a friend and neighbor a chum of last night's spree drops in on his way to the station. "No haste," he says; "old Robinson is still sitting on his porch and he's invariably five min utes ahead of the train. Your watch is fast." "Thank heaven," is the fervid response; "to miss that train this morning would mean hun dreds loss to me." With the eight minutes thus lengthened to thirteen anyway, the disgruntled commuter is less peevish until the cook brings in word that Rob inson is threatened with a fever and can't go to town today. Now there's a wild scramble as the toot of the locomotive is heard in the distance. "Where's Sammy?" the neighbor asks. "Sammy?" the other echoes vaguely. "Why, you brought him out last night so full as a goat that he wanted to nibble the grass on your lawn." "Gqrd-a-mighty, I forgot him. He's asleep in our guest's chamber and my wife hates him fit to murder." There's no time to rescue Sammy and the first act ends with the two men's skurry for the train. Much more of suburban commuters' humor is in the section of James Forbes' new play in a line with "The Chorus Lady" and "The Traveling Salesman." Like extracts from the joke column of a newspaper? Well, where else do you find such reflexes of humor from daily life as you do in those Bame columns? And besides, who better than Forbes since Hoyt has been able to transfer that sort of fun to the stage? And then, f too, the play moves on with the wives that the commuters leave behind them in the suburbs. A meeting of a woman's ethical society, with an address and a discussion on tho wrongs of wives, is an ensuing passage. Of course, Sammy, the derelict from town, figures in the rest of the farce. He is not a commuter, nor a husband, but a bachelor whom the wife hates as an enticer of her husband from his suburban home to city rovelry. His day's experiences with her in hiding, for she doesn't want the gossipers to make a scandal of his pres ence in her husband's absence, are amusing to witness, but wouldn't be readable in narrative. ssssssBMSsmmasmmm AMUSEMENTS Rather a strong dose of epigrammatic clever ness, clashing classes, anti-socialistic argument, dramatic denouements and superb acting was "The Battle." Following the line of least resistance, Mr. Mof fet's story of the efforts of a multl-milllonalre father to win the respect and affection of his long lost and socialistic-innoculated son, spends an en joyable two hours and a half in chasing Its own tail, finishing at about the same place the start was made, but with plenty of reserve energy. The play has for its central theme the kaleidoscopic perspectives from which the ceaseless fight between the very poor and the extremely rich may be viewed, one's expressed observations do pending greatly on whether you are fed by a French chef or as Nye puts it, you happen to bo feeding yourself with flat beer out cf a tomato can. And just as soon as you scrape through the veneer of brilliant epigrams with which Mr. Mof fett has so richly endowed "The Battle," there is disclosed the barest skeleton of any purpose to suggest even remotely a solution of what may be termed the engendered strife between the hope lessly poor and the hopelessly rich. It is extremely doubtful if even Mr. Moffett intended "The Battle" for anything more than an evening's splendid entertainment, for he ar rays capital and squalor in battle lines and upon a background of capitalistic crimes and repugnant business methods, the sullenness and hate of toil ing poverty for wealth and power, and the sunsnless, impractical and usually selfish plans of u average reformer for bettering these con ditions, as the third component factor of his back ground, the author moves his opposing forces against each other in direct onslaughts and flank movements that place the advantage, here and there at will, and finishes with honors about even. No thought is advanced in any moment of "The Battle" that has not been threshed over and over the past few years by one side or tho other. Mr. Moffett splashes his oars only in one of those black, deep ponds whose waters lie stagnant by the swift-running, turbulent and ever-changing river of progressive socialism, and on the sluggish surface of the by-pond his ci aft rides safely. Were it ever launched on the stream itself, the rocks and shoals and un dertow that mark the unrest of labor would make short work of the interesting little bark with its sails of clever and Sometimes hard-hitting epi grams. And there is little in the combination of cir cumstances which forms the plot of "The Battle" to warrant an acceptance of the play as a seriously-aimed effort at a solution of any phase of the wealth-labor strife. Mr. Moffet's characters, with the possible exception of Phillip Ames, are as true to their originals In life as the situations in which they are placed in the play are impos sible of conception in this work-a-day world. So that after all we will have done our part if we open our hearts in "The Battle" to an excellent story, laugh with Mr. Moffett at his quaint foolery, shiver a little at the startlingness of a situation or a line here and there, and rec ognize in his flashes of seriousness the genius of a playwright who has contributed a thoroughly enjoyable play to the latter-day stage. His sar castic references to a number of the pet dreams ot socialistic and anarchistic reformers are among the 'bright spots in "The Battle." It will hove to be admitted that Mr. Moffett has given capital just a shade the best of his arguments pro and con on the question which forms the theme of the play, and the theory of the survival of tho fittest permeates the atmosphere of tho story in a way that might lead one to believe that if Mr. Moffett some day writes from his heart on j--- fHt I Champagne, I Dry and Brut M The H standard M of fine M Sold by all champagne M high class dealers L f'H M. J. 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