DRAMA THE CRIMSON PLAYGOER COMEDY

An out-of-the-ordinary prologue and three acts is "Weeds" at the Hollis Street Theatre. Doubtless the playwrights, John B. Hymes and LeRoy Clemens, called it a comedy drama for lack of a better name, for it fits no dramatic pigeonhole. The prologue, which is weird melodrama, takes the kinks out of the audience's spines and leaves everyone grasping the plush cloak-hanger ropes. In the lantern-lit interior of an empty refrigerator car ride four characters, the weeds of humanity's garden, playing poker--an unctuous card-sharping deacon, an Italian escaped convict, a thug, and a young hobo, who has had a conventional background. As the freight pulls out of a middle Western town, a girl disguised as a boy hops it. The crowd, not deceived, cuts the deck for her. The deacon wins. Smash goes the lantern. A shot, and a couple leap from the car.

Presently the curtain rises again on the small lobby of the Commercial House in Herrington. The girl an ingenue, well played by Miss Mayo Methot, has been taken under the wing of the proprietress, while the quondam hobo who saved the former and has since fellen in love with her, has found a job and sufficient prospects for an early marriage. Enter the deacon with as smooth a piety as his legerdemain at cards. The audience, as the action proceeds to draw forth an unquestionably real and homely set of characters, is at a loss to know what to expect--melodrama, provincial comedy, middle Western still life, or a subtle dramatic tangle. The combination of all four is perhaps as shrewd an answer as one can hazard.

The play, in addition, is curiously constructed, some may say poorly construct- ed, for the curtain comes down at the end of a first act provoking interest by its lack of dramatic climax. The second and third acts hold the attention remarkably. The suave scheming deacon, a lovable hypocrite and generous to a fault, is pivot; and Mr. Berton Churchill acts his sanctimonious role to perfection, while with nimble wit and deft fingers he wins himself, the girl, the hobo, and the proprietress out of dangerous holes. Then there are the villains, well drawn, better acted, and best cast, and the local characters highly indigenous and the comic prize fighter, "Bull" Moran, et altera. Young Jerry Devine, as the hero and heroine idolater and the son of the coquettish proprietress, is, however, one of the chief stars. His juvenile acting is absolutely genuine and has much charm withal. And with these bouquets distributed, one must retire. "Weeds" is not a brilliant or sensational play, but it affords as good a measure of diversion as many a more pretentious offering, in addition to being the most excellently cast play in town