Critical Moments

In the “Milky Way,” a comedy by Lynn Root and Harry Clork which will open tonight at the Cort Theatre the initial episode is based on an actual incident in ring history, in which a well known middleweight was the surprised and unhappy victim. It shows a character called Speed McFarland, lightweight champion, as he wakes up in the morning after a session with a flock of drinks. He finds himself adorned with a black eye and neither himself or his trainer can account for it. The morning papers, however, are not at all backward in explaining the acquisition of this facial souvenir and in headlines state that the champion was knocked out by a truck driver named Burleigh Sullivan in a night club brawl. A tap is heard at the door and it is the truck driver who has arrived to apologize. He turns out to be a milkman, as mild as the product he peddles, whose main object in life is to duck not sock.

THINGS HAPPEN

In the course of the milkman’s explanation there is another brawl, and the champion is knocked out again, just in time to be caught taking the count by the sports writers. The champion’s manager, a cunning fellow named “Honest” Gabby Sloan, decides the only way to save the champion’s face is to make a fighter of the ducking milkman and have them meet in the ring. The consequences prove hard for even a stage fight manager’s blood pressure to weather.

The role of the manager is played by Leo Donnelly, who was a fight promoter in person years ago in Philadelphia. Brian Donlevy, an Irishman with natural fighting tendencies who will be remembered from “Ringside,” plays the champion, and the milkman is that amiable Milquetoast of Broadway, Hugh O’Connell.

All of which sounds very amusing and exciting. We’ll see?

ABOUT THE PRODUCERS

The producers of this comedy are two young men, each 26 years old and named respectively Sidney Harmon and James R. Ullman. The first is a medium height bespectacled native of the city of Poughkeepsie, N. Y. who was graduated from New York University in 1929. He resembles, by a short stretch of the imagination, a flyweight prize fighter. He is possessed of an amazing amount of industry and energy and has been hanging around theatres since his college days. James Ullman is also spectacle wearing but he is tall, slim and not at all bad looking. New York was his birthplace and after attending Andover he went on to Princeton. While at that university he wrote a book called “Mad Shelly” but the theatre has had an unconquerable attraction for him. Harmon produced “Precedent” and “Blood Stream” before he joined forces with Ullman. Together they produced a piece that lasted a short time. Their first hit was the current prize winning “Men In White” at the Broadhurst.

OVERWHELMED WITH MATERIAL

Ever since “Men in White” broke into the hit column the two boys have been overwhelmed with play scripts but they have shown a surprising amount of restraint. Only three have been accepted, “Waltz in Fire,” “The Mourning Angel” and “The Milky Way” being the trio, but the first two will not be produced until next season. For the time being “The Milky Way” will have to support the producing firm of Harmon & Ullman. It is only fair to add that each of these two Jewish boys has written two plays but both have no idea of putting them into rehearsal under their own auspices.

PIRATES OF PENZANCE

Last night at the Majestic Theatre S. Chartock offered “The Pirates of Penzance” as the sixth week of his Gilbert and Sullivan cycle of revivals. The same cast which performed the operetta a month ago being featured.