Nice People

Nice People (1921), a play by Rachel Crothers. [Klaw Theatre, 247 perf.] Teddy Gloucester (Francine Larrimore) and her friends Hallie Livingston (Tallulah Bankhead) and Eileen Baxter Jones (Katharine Cornell) are hedonistic flappers. Over the objections of her father and aunt, Teddy spends the night partying with the equally high‐living Scottie Wilbur (Hugh Huntley). When Teddy and Scottie later find themselves stranded at the Gloucester country cottage, it brings down the wrath of Teddy's father. But during that rainy night at the cottage the young peoples' idyll had been intruded upon by a stranded motorist, young Billy Wade (Robert Ames). The serious, proper Wade wins Teddy's affections, much to her father's pleasure. Hallie and Eileen are dismayed to realize that Teddy will be marrying and settling down. They will do no such thing, not when so many attractive men and lively parties beckon. Although many critics felt the play collapsed in the last act, with its contrived happy ending, the public found the Sam H. Harris offering an excellent study of contemporary mores.