Reception
The new play by Edward Peple, which opened at Frazee's Longacre Theatre last week, has suffered perhaps from the enthusiastic encomiums of the daily press. It is an amusing farce, but it does not arouse the side-splitting merriment that we were led to expect by some of the critiques published after its premiere. The play cannot, however, be held responsible if it fails to match exactly the promise held out by critics who, after a succession of disastrous failures, were perhaps inclined to be over-indulgent in the presence of an undeniable success.
Mr. Peple has conceived of an excellent idea, the innate absurdity of which only commends it for farcical purposes. The two partners of a successful pill industry, failing to agree on any subject, call in the assistance of their lawyer. The partnership cannot be dissolved, for neither one will buy out the other; so the lawyer, in order that the farce may proceed to its appointed conclusion, hits on the device of deciding by a single hand of poker which partner shall continue to conduct the business for a year, and which shall serve the winner in a menial capacity during that period. A pair of sixes in the hand of George B. Nettleton gives him the advantage, and enables the author in the second act to present to us T. Boggs John in the capacity of his partner's butler.
The possibilities of the situation are obvious, and Mr. Peple has on the whole made good use of them. The play has one conspicuous merit in that the interest increases throughout and the last act is the best of the three. There are moments of dullness, notably in those scenes in which Nettleton‘s wife predominates, but there are a number of laughable situations and many good lines, and the climax, in which the subtle Boggs John, under the inspiration of his astute fiancée (well played by Miss Ann Murdock), delivers himself from servitude by his attentions to his master's wife, is ingenious. The play is well cast throughout, and George Parsons and Hale Hamilton are excellent as the two partners, while an individual success is made by Miss Maude Eburne as Coddles, the English maid-of-all-work. If we are prepared to grant that the natural destiny of our native farce is to be developed through a crescendo of noise, "A Pair of Sixes" thoroughly deserves the success that it promises to enjoy. We may, however, make the mental reservation that a certain amount of subtlety is not incompatible with the true spirit of farce. The Nation, 1914. [10]
‘A Pair of Sixes’ is the kind of farce which has no nationality, except as its rapid-fire development, its breezy humor, and its care for a certain surface reality brand it as American. The same may, perhaps, be said of ‘Seven Keys to Baldpate.’ Mr. Craven's play, however, and ‘Potash and Perlmutter’ are both products of actual conditions in the life about us, and are for that reason much more significant. The Literary Digest 1914 [11]
The Guardsman is a 1931 American pre-Code film based on the play Testőr by Ferenc Molnár. It stars Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Roland Young and ZaSu Pitts. It opens with a stage re-enactment of the final scene of Maxwell Anderson's Elizabeth the Queen, with Fontanne as Elizabeth and Lunt as the Earl of Essex, but otherwise has nothing to do with that play.
Harry Herbert Frazee was an American theatrical agent, producer, and director, and owner of Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox from 1916 to 1923. He is well known for selling Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, which started the alleged Curse of the Bambino.
Taylor Holmes was an American actor who appeared in over 100 Broadway plays in his five-decade career. However, he is probably best remembered for his screen performances, which he began in silent films in 1917. Among his earliest starring roles is in George K. Spoor's 1918 production A Pair of Sixes.
Queen High is the title of an American pre-Code musical comedy film, produced by Paramount Pictures in 1930. Based upon the 1926 stage musical Queen High that Buddy DeSylva, Lewis Gensler, and Laurence Schwab had adapted from Edward Peple's 1914 farce A Pair of Sixes. The storyline loosely concerns a rivalry between two businessmen that results in a game of poker. Whoever loses the game becomes the winner's servant for a year.
The Longacre Theatre is a Broadway theater at 220 West 48th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. Opened in 1913, it was designed by Henry B. Herts and was named for Longacre Square, now known as Times Square. The Longacre has 1,077 seats and is operated by The Shubert Organization. Both the facade and the auditorium's interior are New York City designated landmarks.
Lois June Nettleton was an American film, stage, radio, and television actress. She received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations and won two Daytime Emmy Awards.
The Ritz is a comedic farce by Terrence McNally. Rita Moreno won a Tony Award for her performance as Googie Gomez in the 1975 Broadway production, which she and many others of the original cast reprised in a 1976 film version directed by Richard Lester.
Edward Henry Peple was an American playwright known for his comedies and farces. He was perhaps best remembered for the plays The Prince Chap,The Littlest Rebel and A Pair of Sixes.
The Olympia Theatre, also known as Hammerstein's Olympia, was a theatre complex built by impresario Oscar Hammerstein I in Longacre Square, New York City, opening in 1895. It consisted of a theatre, a music hall, a concert hall, and a roof garden. Later, sections of the structure were substantially remodeled and used for both live theatre and for motion pictures. As a cinema, it was also known at various times as the Vitagraph Theatre and the Criterion Theatre.
Maude Eburne was a Canadian character actress of stage and screen, known for playing eccentric roles.
Tony Hart, was an American actor, comedian and singer. He is best known for working with Edward Harrigan in the late 19th century comedy team of Harrigan & Hart.
Laurence Hanray, sometimes credited as Lawrence Hanray, was a British film and theatre actor born in London, England. He is also credited as the author of several plays and music hall songs.
Oswald Yorke(néeOswald Parkinson Harker; 24 November 1866 – 25 January 1943) was a British character actor who had a near sixty-year career performing on both sides of the Atlantic.
Ida Waterman was a stage and screen actress.
On Again-Off Again is a 1937 musical comedy film, released by RKO Radio Pictures starring the comedy team Wheeler & Woolsey.
Ivy Troutman was an American supporting actress active during the first half of the twentieth century. She acted in at least twenty-one Broadway productions between 1902 and 1945, appearing in such long-running plays as A Pair of Sixes, Baby Mine and The Late George Apley. In the 1920s Troutman, with her husband, portrait painter Waldo Peirce, joined the colony of American expatriates in Paris that included Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.
Young Mrs. Winthrop is an 1882 play by Bronson Howard which debuted on Broadway at the Madison Square Theatre on October 9, 1882, and ran for 183 performances, closing on April 7, 1883. It was the first play for which David Belasco served as stage manager at the theater.
William Albert Grew was an American actor, sketch-writer and revue playwright who wrote, directed, and performed in nine Broadway productions from 1924 to 1931. His and his wife, actress Gwendolyn Pates, had a stock company called the Grew-Pates Players, performing in the United States and Canada from 1914 to 1920.
Francis Henry Westerton was a British stage and silent film actor of the 19th and early 20th centuries who carved a successful career on Broadway from 1905 to 1922.
A Pair of Sixes is a 1918 American silent comedy film directed by Lawrence C. Windom and starring Taylor Holmes, Robert Conness and Alice Mann.
