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Now about the production.
"Hard to be a Girl" is a
musical comedy with all the necessary potpourri of this kind
of creations -- a great number of songs and dance, a chorus
of young girls, many jokes and laughs, and d. gl, The
thing also has no bad subject, just an extraneous one. There
is a bit of news, and it touches on an important point in
our lives, but it is carried out in the usual way of such
comedies.
A couple of people, Jack and
Mary, beggars in the streets. Jack is portrayed as a blind
man and plays a violin. Mary picks up the alms. She borders
herself with the underworld. Kid Benny, a pickpocket, who
now has a job as a chauffeur, shows them an advertisement
that says that they can make five-thousand dollars. In a
rich house there is an abandoned baby. The owner of the
house advertises that if the mother of the child will call,
she will receive five-thousand dollars. He takes three of
the gang to do the job to get this amount. Florence, a singer
in a cheap cabaret, shows up as the mother of the abandoned
baby. Jack and Mary appear as Florence's parents. And they
receive the five-thousand dollars.
Let us go there too. The baby
becomes abandoned in the house of Yosl Green, a respectable
boss, but not a rich one. The rich real-estate person,
Mister Zlatkin, has a mortgage on his house, and he can
through him out at any time. So, for Zlatkin it is not
difficult to carry it out, that his daughter, Helen, should
be a bride for Green's son, Martin, although Martin does not
like Helen.
Helen also doesn't want
Martin. She pleads to her father that she cannot forget her
sweetheart, Walter, who Zlatkin had plunged into murder on a
false accusation. And here we learn right away that the
abandoned baby is Helen's child. This is what her father did
for the job, and he forced her to remain silent and marry
Martin.
Jack and Mary, dressed as a
rabbi and rebbetzin from a country town somewhere, arrive
with Florence to Green for the abandoned baby. Zlatkin, with
his daughter, are also present. They hear Florence's story,
and are silent, naturally. But the money does not quickly go
to the people. The abyssal business continues, and an
entanglement begins here.
Martin falls in love with
Florence, and he hires her as a model for his pictures. He
is a painter. And the old Zlatkin shares himself to Florence
too. With money they can buy everything, he says, why should
he not have such a beautiful young woman as Florence?
Florence does not want to hear about it, he explains to her
that he has a mortgage on her, a stick: He knows that she is
not the mother of the abandoned baby. Florence decides to
come out with the whole truth. People believe it or they
don't. She's made crazy. Jack and Mary explain that their
"daughter" often falls into such craziness.
And Martin with Helen go to
the wedding canopy. But at the last second, Walter enters.
His term has already been set, a year in prison, and then he
would return to Helen. And Helen now tells the truth.
Helen goes to Walter and
Martin catches up with Florence.
The role of Jack and Mary are
played by Louis Birnbaum and Minnie Birnbaum. Also Peter
Graf is good as the real-estate person Zlatkin.
Jacob Rechtzeit and Bettie
Jacobs are Yosl Green and his wife Sara, and they create
many minutes of jokes and laughter.
The singer and dancers are:
William Schwartz, as Martin; Paul Lubelska, as Florence;
Mildred Block, as Martin's sister Susie; Seymour Rechtzeit,
as Kid Benny.
Nathan Goldberg plays
satisfactorily in the small role of Walter, who comes in at
the last second, when Martin and Helen are already at the
wedding canopy. Satisfactory also is Thelma Jacobs [Mintz --
ed.], as Helen, Zlatkin's daughter.
The lyrics are by Jacob
Jacobs. The sets are constructed by the Saltzman Brothers.
The dances were learned thoroughly by Seymour Rechtzeit. |
