Rollo's Wild Oat

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Rollo's Wild Oat
Scene from the play
Written byClare Kummer
Date premiered23 November 1920
Place premieredPunch and Judy Theatre, 49th St., New York
Original languageEnglish

Rollo's Wild Oat is a 1920 comedic play by Clare Kummer.

Background

The play first had some tryout runs, including in upstate New York[1][2] and Philadelphia in January-February 1920,[3] but a middling reception delayed a planned Broadway debut. Originally slated for the Selwyns, they lost confidence in it and gave it up, and Kummer decided to finance it herself.[4]

The play debuted at the smaller venue 300 seat Punch and Judy Theatre on Broadway on November 23, 1920. It was a decent success and ran into June 1921 for a total run of 228 performances.[5]

Critic

New York Tribune, Heywood Broun wrote "the best of it seems to us to be the finest work which Miss Kummer has yet done for the theatre, which means that it is far and away beyond the capacity of any other American writer of light comedy, with the possible exception of Booth Tarkington. Mingled with this is other materials which is distinctly dull."[8] But while Broun believed plot was almost superfluous to Kummer's best writing, the New York Herald found that despite "flashes of that whimsical wit," the play "was suggestive in more ways that one last night of entertaining amateur theatricals" and the "dramatic crisis" of the play was "quite flat."[9] Charles Darnton of the New York World was much kinder, writing that the play "reaped whirlwinds of laughter and won new laurels" for Kummer, and praised Roland Young's performance.[10]

The play was popular in stock productions into the 1940s.[7] The Metropolitan Playhouse put on a revival of the play in 2014.[11]

Original Broadway cast

In order of appearance

  • Ivan Simpson as Hewston
  • Marjorie Kummer as Lydia
  • Roland Young as Rollo Webster
  • Dore Davidson as Mr. Stein
  • Lotus Robb as Goldie MacDuff
  • Edythe Tressider as Mrs. Park Gales
  • J. Palmer Collins as Whortley Camperdown
  • Manuel A. Alexander as Thomas Skitterling
  • Stanley Howlett as George Lucus
  • Grace Peters as Aunt Lane
  • J.M. Kerrigan
    as Horatio Webster
  • Elinor Cox as Bella

Kummer's daughter Marjorie was in the cast, in her stage debut.[9] She married her castmate Roland Young in 1921.[12]

References

  1. ^ (23 January 1920). "Rollo's Wild Oats" (sic), Fayetteville Bulletin
  2. ^ (5 February 1920). Stage and Screen Personalities, The Argus (Albany, New York)
  3. ^ New Kummer Play Has Sparkling Lines, Evening Public Ledger, p. 13 col 2.
  4. ^ Mantle, Burns (5 December 1920). Add "Rollo's Wild Oat" to List of Kummer Successes, Omaha Daily Bee
  5. ^ Rollo's Wild Oat, Hearst's (May? 1921)
  6. ^ Mantle, Burns, ed. The Best Plays of 1920-21, p. 7 (1921)
  7. ^ a b Bordman, Gerald and Thomas S. Hischak. The Concise Oxford Companion to American Theatre, 3d ed., p. 537(2004)
  8. ^ (24 November 1920). Keen Delight in The Newest Play Of Miss Kummer, New York Tribune
  9. ^ a b (24 November 1920). Rollo's Wild Oat Has Suggestions of Amateur Play, New York Herald
  10. ^ Darnton, Charles (24 November 1920). The New Plays: "Rollo's Wild Oat" A Rare Comedy Treat, Evening World
  11. ^ Soloski, Alexis (2 December 2014). Rich Guy Buys Stage Role, The New York Times
  12. ^ (7 February 1921). Roland Young and Clare Kummer's Daughter Married, New York Herald

External links

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