Upstairs and Down

Upstairs and Down (1916), a comedy by Frederic and Fanny Hatton. [ Cort Theatre, 320 perf.] At a giddy Long Island weekend party, the hostess, Nancy Ives (Christine Norman), begins to wonder about the amorality and immorality of her social set. Her guests are petty, selfish, and self‐deceiving. Elizabeth (Mary Servoss) and her sister, Alice Chesterton (Juliet Day), are good examples—lying and backbiting each other in their efforts to attract the same man, Terrence O'Keefe (Courtney Foote). Deciding she would be happier in a blue collar world, Nancy heads for the servant quarters. But there she finds the same meanness and backstabbing among the staff headed by the family valet, Louis (Leo Carrillo). At least the rich people upstairs have the advantages of comfort and elegance. Although the Oliver Morosco offering vacillated between social satire and standard Broadway farce, it delighted playgoers not troubled by a wavering sense of tone.