The Crimson Playgoer

"Sea Legs" is a breezy, carefree musical about a cat and a ship and asserted people. It makes no pretensions of edifying or satirizing; it is content to amuse. One sits back, gently smiling, frequently laughing, aroused by nothing more than an occasional dirty joke.

The subdued tone of the piece in general allows attention to be turned to the specialized talents of Dorothy Stone and Roscoe Ates. Charles Collins also rates large type in all the announcements, but he is clearly outdone by the other two leads. Miss Stone probably owes some of her success to her place in the stepping family, but her singing and dancing are above average, and she has a determination to be good that comes out as a constant flow of energy and vivacity. Roscoe Ates, by matching his manner to his imbecilic look, pounds away with a good brand of obvious humor.

Charles Collins is liked or loved by nearly all the women in the play, and even Mr. Ates assures us that he would be sweet on him if he were a girl, but, although nobody in the audience was likely to take a violent dislike to him, it is doubtful that his extreme popularity extended much beyond the stage. To put it bluntly, he's something of a sissy.

The action revolves about a lionized cat, and the efforts to kill it, save it, substitute for it, and impersonate its one-logged doctor, occupy the full two and a half hours. Starting with so limited a topic as a cat and restricted in locale to the sun-deck of a yacht, the play nevertheless spreads out over a wide range of situations. One indication of this is the names of the songs. They're all rather good, but slightly outstanding is "Totched in the Haid and Smitten in the Heart", and really superior is "Ten O'Clock Town", for which the boat momentarily becomes a little Victorian village, with lights blinked out two hours before midnight.