CRIMSON PLAYGOER

We have seen "Blossom Time" twice. When we were ten years old we fidgeted so much our uncle had to remove us bodily from the theatre in the middle of the performance. Last night we sat through the entire production with a good deal more enjoyment, only fidgeting in occasional spots. "Blossom Time" blossomed forth about as well as any tragic, sentimental light-opera could before an audience accustomed to mock-serious musical comedies on the order of "Red Hot and Blue," or "On Your Toes."

The plot, sadly enough, as before said, takes life seriously. It is a portrayal of Franz Shubert's hopeless passion for a beautiful young daughter of an Austrian jeweler. Shubert, a shy and awkward lover, finds a vent for his love in his songs to the fair Mitzi, but their new-found romance is nipped in the bud by a hapless misunderstanding. Mitzi then showers all of her warm affection upon a gay young blade, one Baron Schober, and Shubert, unable to finish his symphony for which she was the inspiration, pines away in heroic devotion. Comic honors go without a doubt to Mitzi's father, old man Krantz, who makes an art of slapstick comedy. His performance as a drunk and a hard-boiled father saves the dialogue time and again from sinking into monotonous sentimentalism.

Shubert's music is the real backbone to "Blossom Time," and his music alone is enough to satisfy an audience. The singing of George Trabert and Diana Gaylen, particularly their duets, send one from the theatre humming those old melodies still pleasant to the ear. This is, perhaps, the last revival of "Blossom Time"; its day is past. Before it wings into the blue, we suggest that you see it. It still pleases.