A musical comedy with the Duncan Sisters as stars, given in the Apollo Theater Dec. 26, 1933. Book by Catherine Chisholm Cushing, revised by Harry Clark. Music and lyrics by the Duncan Sisters.

The Cast.

and others.

  If you have any doubts about the ability of the Duncan Sisters to revive their ten year old musical comedy based on an eighty four year old play and make a new, 1934 show out of it, you are hereby advised to change your mind. "Topsy and Eva," as freshly staged in the Apollo by the inimitable Dunks, who easily lead the world when it comes to sister acts, is as refreshing and amusing now as it was in the first season of its vogue (1924). It might almost be called a novelty.

  The girls, who apparently refuse to grow up or look a day older than they did when they began their career in this comic and lyric version of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," have given the piece a new catalog of musical numbers in up to date styles. They have retained the ingratiating ballad called "Remembering," which was the sentimental tour de force and irresistible song hit of the first "Topsy and Eva," but elsewhere along the musical front, everything is fresh fodder for the jazz band and the radio warblers.

  This new score, it must be added, is decidedly good. The Duncans may give the appearance of being artless children, but they have highly cultivated musical talents. They are a pair of wise little veterans in the tricky art of modern popular song.

  Their featured duets in this production are "Scaling the Clef" and "Sing Me to Sleep with a Love Song," the former figuring in the music lesson scene with Miss Ophelia (a merry and ingenious frolic in musical technique) and the latter coming in an episode with Uncle Tom as sentimental relief to Topsy's persistent deviltry.

  Rosetta's fantastic interpretation of the role of Topsy displays modern comic improvements. With her gift for sly roguishness she has built up the part with wisecracks and grotesque by-play. This is a Topsy developed to meet current taste by the Olsen and Johnson method. It is a rich specimen of ingenious drollery, without any suggestion that the show is a revival.

  Vivian, the fair haired Eva of the proceedings, has come through the last decade unchanged in spite of marriage and maternity. The young folks of today who repair to this staging of "Topsy and Eva" to revive the happy illusions of their childhood will suffer no shattering of illusions.

  The stars have assembled a company that sings better than the average musical comedy cast, and have staged the affair smartly. (Myrtle Ferguson, the Miss Ophelia, is, I believe, a survivor of the first version.) The libretto does not creak; the orchestra is excellent; and the performance has spirit, assurance, and gayety.

  "Uncle Tom's Cabin" always was a good show. So was, and is, "Topsy and Eva."