Hollister Finds "Laugh It Off" Great Success--Says Dancing and Acting of Wilson Feature Pudding Show

The following review of "Laugh it Off," this year's Hasty Puddy Club production was written for the Crimson by P. M. Hollister '13, Ivy Orator of his class.

The Pudding is out again, with a musical show that is much better than average, with a book containing some good lines, music that comes up to a high standard of red, white and blue syncopation, accurate dancing, clean, pretty costumes, a leading woman of uncommon excellence, and a spirit that is altogether exceptional. The leading woman is so darned good that it is a temptation to dismiss the production of "Laugh it Off" with the review, "Wilson, that's all" but it isn't all.

Last year the Hasty Pudding Club took in boarders, invited the Institute of 1770 in as a paying guest, and with the proceeds of this happy alliance furnished up the Holyoke Street -club- house, painted the theatre, hung all the old posters in the wrong places, and found themselves with a lot of Sophomore talent. W. S. Wilson '27, is a Sophomore. He ought to make All-American before he is through, if he can hold the delightful gift he has of dressing and looking and acting like a shy, determined little red-haired cutie without the slightest trace of the female impersonator. He can dance. There is no doubt that he does dance. His dancing of Alger's "Hobby Horse Hop" stopped the opera completely and several hundred graduates broke up the seats; later, in a savage interpretation of the Charleston, to the accompaniment of an obligato on Mr. Moynahan's squeal-horn. Mr. Wilson did things with his knee-joints that didn't seem at all reasonable. There is no use trying to pin his charm down to paper, but you'll come out of "Laugh It Off" raving about Mr. Wilson, so why shouldn't we? If this be Sophomores, let us make the most of them.

There is a book, of course, the work of J. C. Murphy '25, and W. S. Martin '26. It is a good book as Pudding books go; that is, it writes a plot to fit a scant collection of people, and a most attractive equipment of scenery, and the number of trick doors in the set, and the numbers and specialties in the score, and keeps its head and its temper through all this wrestling, occasionally cocking a humorous eye up at its assailants with a line like. "You must have some vices--do you row?" or "Our family dates as far back as the first Liberty Loan drive!" Now and then it makes fun of the plot, which is as a Pudding book should. The book spent a good deal of time rounding out a comic character with a weakness for cross-word puzzles, which is either over or under-played by C. T. F. B. Lyon '27. You would think that with those extra letters, he could get somewhere with crossword puzzles, but evidently not.

The chief parts are in the hands of very competent and way-wise actors: F. M. Eaton '27, as the leading man, and therefore the Plot, is personable and easy: J. C. MacDonald '26, is an agreeable lepidopterist (a lepidopterist just makes the glasses he doesn't test your eyes: not allowed to by law, or some-thing); J. H. Wright '25, is apparently a butler, but when he lays hold of an ukulele and sings with Mr. Wilson, or when he does a neat step-dance with Mr. Wilson, J. H. Wright '27 is as admirable as Crichton and a lot nimbler C. S. Gross '27 would be a Grade-A prima donna in any college production, and but for the presence of the boy-friend Wilson, would lead this review; instead he is generously content to complement the other's piquancy with a substantial loveliness of his own, and to pile up the Harvard score by taking second place, or four points. And of the four leading squaws, not the least is A. M. Carrillo '26, who is doing yeo-man (F) duty in lobby and rotogravure display. Mr. Lyon, the dowager, makes up in elevation what he may lack in the delivery of lines. The heavy comedy falls to the lot of R. F. Burke '25, as a rum-raiding constable, and of E. S. Daniell Jr. '26, as a captain of industry. Mr. Burke is constantly on the verge of being wildly grotesque, while Mr. Daniell is as constantly on the verge of finding himself in time with the music.

"Laugh It Off" may start out on its long tour confident that any graduate in the open spaces who has bought tickets will get more than his money's worth, and that any graduate who hasn't bought tickets has only himself to blame. For among the commodities thrown in with the price are these:

1. A chorus of girls that dances together

2. A long, lean, smiling chorus girl who is called W. R. Wister '27, and who is the son of Owen Wister, who wrote the first of the Pudding's musical comedies, "Dido and Aeneas". Since then Mr. Wister has written a number of other things, but none of more moment.

3. A slow-movie pantomine of a golfer, by C. B. Moynahan '26, who is another of these Moynahans who are always making Pudding productions better.

4. A hero with an extraordinarily fine voice, M. L. Brown '27, a graduate of the Cathedral Choir school.

5. Several instances of Mr. Alger's music, which is just a little better than the level of a good score. It took nine song-writers to make this score, and was worth the trouble.

6. A jazz orchestra led by a hockey goal who plays the violin. Charles G. Dawes had better look into this.

7. An air. An air of something unknown, but something that says in effect: "We hereby serve notice, by our enjoyment of this show, and what snap we've put into it, and the careful smoothness that we've tried to polish it with, and a number of other things that senile graduates wouldn't understand that this is just the first year's evidence that some modestly important things can be expected of the rejuvenated Pudding after it hits its stride.

At the price of one ticket, it is the opinion of this observer that "Laugh it Off" is a proud bargain. It won't have to panhandle its way into the files reserved for exceptional H. P. C. shows