_Showing That the Smart Playgoer, Not the Smart Play, Is Really the Thing_
Musical comedy audiences are always notable for the rapt attention they pay to the evening’s entertainment. The male students of the drama, in particular, seem to be ever on the lookout for good lines--especially those of the ladies of the chorus. Above is shown a loge-ful at that standing-room-only success, “The Girl on the Nightboat.”
This is a scene from that realm of outer darkness--the moving picture theatre. The audiences are the thing that make moving pictures move. Observe how intent they are upon the thrilling scenes reeling out before their very eyes. The stirring picture now on the screen shows the inhabitants of Nova Scotia tinning salmon. Only two people--in the back row--fail to register interest in the scenes before them,--those two are, nevertheless, true devotees of the cinema theatres.
You can always tell, by looking at the audience, just who is holding the center of the stage. When the masculine half of the audience occupies itself in reading the corset advertisements in the programmes or in looking restlessly about while the feminine half strains to catch every word--then you can be sure that the marcelled hero, in the jet-buttoned evening clothes, with the velvet collar, is standing in the spotlight and singing, or talking, rhapsodically about the age-old passion of LOVE.
The war was really responsible for a great many unfortunate occurrences, as so many observant people have already pointed out. Here, for instance, is the case of two returned Lieutenants who, in their year’s stay in Germany, have managed to pick up a good working knowledge of the French language. By way of celebrating their home-coming, they have been invited to see the latest imported French farce--and find that they can understand every word of it. In the future, they will only patronize domestic products.
This is one of those delightful little occasions where the children are given their annual holiday treat. All their existing ancestors, in a body, take them to the Hippodrome. For weeks before the eventful evening, their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles go about suffering intensely saying what a fearful bore it is going to be and how they dread it, but they really must go through with it--it means so much to the kiddies. Here is the party, shown in action,--observe the deadly boredom of the grown people and the hysterical hilarity of the little guests of honor.