The Torch-Bearers: A Satirical Comedy in Three Acts

The Torch-Bearers: A Satirical Comedy in Three Acts

I cannot remember if it was one of those torrid and terrible nights of August when the chain-gang of New Yorks critics was tolled off to the Forty-Eighth Street Theatre for the premire of The Torch-Bearers. But I do know that the general atmosphere of oppressionphysical, mental, professionalwas a little denser than usual. In the first twenty-eight days of August, 1922, managements too daring or too resourceless to wait for September had deluged us with a steady stream of inanity, and here was another dousing in prospect. If it wasnt the heat, it was certainly the humidity of theatrical August. Unknown play, new producers, authors name vaguely connected with vaudeville; altogether a production so little esteemed by the booking powers that it had to slip into a few weeks before the Equity Players began their season at this theatre. It could have been a night of Elysian coolness, and still we would have been expecting the worst. It could have been mid-April, and still we should have found an almost ineffable freshness in the breeze of George Kellys little comedy. The cold, historical fact is that at about 9:15 oclock on the evening of August 29th, 1922, five or six hundred average New Yorkers, two or three hundred friends of the management, and about fifty sophisticated first-nighters were in grave danger of rolling off their seats in hysteria because of The Torch-Bearers. [xiv]The intermissions were filled with three questions which more or less concern the reader of the published play. Who was George Kelly? Where did he get the comedy? How would it go? ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 60523
Author: Kelly, George
Release Date: Oct 19, 2019
Format: eBook
Language: English