Rapid Promotion (new version)

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

This is the revised version of a play reported on by me on October 23rd. The characters and plot remain the same, but the dialogue is considerably altered. As before said, it is an old fashioned farce of complications. Fear of one Dolores, now a housekeeper and once a person who “carried [on]” with officers in a country town – the scene is an imaginary South American Republic – causes (1) a Captain (2) a General and (3) The President to change clothes with Pablo, a private and the chief comedian. Each has been threatened with revenge and the existence of a baby, and eventually it turns out there was no baby at all. The complications are multiplied by various wives turning up and so on. It is rough fun, and anyone on the lookout for suggestiveness might say it contained some in the nature of the plot, but no real sexual business is meant; the whole thing is a mad frolic. Taking the new dialogue I have marked a quite unnecessary passage about a “strawberry leaf on the inside of her knee” act I pp 4 and 6 – and some of the more or less unpleasant business in act I p12/p13. Act II pg. 36 Pablo’s entering “without his tunic” might be a little suggestive, as he is supposed to have been with his wife, and might be cut out to be on the safe side. Passages taken out on the previous occasion duly remain out. Recommended for Licence G. S. Street. 29.12.1916 I saw W. Martin Henry the producer of this farce and he will omit entirely the passages referred. The tunic will be worn. The MS has been altered accordingly. WMH.