YES, MY DARLING DAUGHTER.

.. .... By Mark Reed '12. New York, Samuel French, 1937. p. 128. $2.00.

Mr. Reed's contributions to the American stage (and therefore movies) become successively more skilful and charming. This is the third of his plays I have reviewed for the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, and I am coming to look forward to the little task. Petticoat Fever was vastly brighter and tighter than Let's Get Rich, and Yes,My Darling Daughter is still better. ,It seems we can count on Mr. Reed every year or so for genuinely pleasing comedy.

In Yes, My Darling Daughter a mother, whose past was "Greenwich Village," though her present is domesticated and sober, discovers that her daughter contemplates an unchaperoned week-end with a young man in a little cottage by a lake. The daughter feels justified by her mother's old example, which she has unearthed at college. The mother doesn't like either the week-end or the justification, and tries to make obstacles. But they're no good, and the daughter has her week-end. The upshot, however, is satisfactory both to the mother and the conventions.

For Mr. Reed's play, as can be seen, everything depends on the character of the mother. She must understand and sympathize with the daughter's "liberal" ideas, but she must also know their dubious value. She must be a woman of poise and tact and intelligence, and capable of resisting the impulse to play the heavy parent. Mr. Reed succeeds with her very well. His conception comes over neatly, and she carries the play along.

The other people, the would-be heavy father, his divorcee sister, the mother's old lover, provide an even distribution of good lines. Every part in the play provides acting opportunity. The one weakness is the rather incredible young man, the daughter's pal, whom Mr. Reed makes strike high moral poses. This perhaps gives the play an effective ending in the theatre, but it has the effect of checking the reader's sense of truth.

Nevertheless, Yes, My Darling Daughter is fun to read, and must be more fun to see. I feel sure it will be visible in many summer theatres and before long on the screen.