The Play
Skinner, R. Dana
650 THE COMMONWEAL November 4, I925 THE PLAY By R. DANA SKINNER The Glass 8lipper F ~ERENC MOLNAR has done an extraordinary thing. He has created one character of amazing beauty and...
...Yet in his treatment of the two main characters--the little boarding house drudge with the soul of an elfin poet, and the middle- aged carpenter whom her fancy transmutes into a hero--Mr...
...The Roman Catholics'--not a sect, not even an interest as men conceived of it"--and so on in those marvelous passages of English which Newman left us in his sermon, The Second Spring...
...Outside Looking/n---The hobo empire at its best and worst --marred by wholly unnecessary blasphemy...
...A more mature artist--surdy Mr...
...The Butter and Egg Man---Mostly good comedy spoiled by occasional offensively bad taste...
...then, most unexpected, the stream from Oxford...
...BOOKS BOOKS ON ENGLAND'S SECOND SPRING tt~T O LONGER the Catholic Church in the country...
...If she knew half as much about the hidden springs of her selfish actions as the author would indicate, she could not live in the same house with herself for one day...
...There are incidental passages in The Glass Slipper as vulgar, as trite and as cynically affected as anything yet imported from the Hungarian stage...
...There have been various reprints, but the judicious purchaser should endeavor to secure a copy of the edition published by Keating, Brown and Company in the early part of the last century, because of the quaint woodcuts with which it is adorned...
...Nothing is left to develop- ment or later discovery...
...nay, no longer I may say, a Catholic community--but a few adherents of the old religion, moving silently and sorrow- fully about, as memorials of what had been...
...I899) and his Eve of the Reformation (London: Nimmo...
...And Lee Baker as the middle-aged carpenter--a failure, a weakling, but also with an ever-increasing rebellion in his soul--has created the full complement of Miss Walker's Irma...
...Arras and the Man.--Splendidly acted revival of Shaw's pleasantest comedy...
...Charles Trow- bridge is equally effective as the husband, and Josephine Hull makes the r61e of a sentimental, middle-aged, flower-loving and neighborly widow memorable...
...Craig--the suave manner, the icy loftiness, the metallic obstinacy, the fluttering meticulousness, the piercing sarcasm...
...This book deals with the Catholic martyrs and confessors from the time of Henry VIII to the last under Charles II, Fathers Wall and Kemble, martyred on the same day, one near Worcester, the other near Hereford as a result of the machinations of that choice scoundrel, Titus Oates...
...The Gorilla--The best spoofing of mystery plays in many a day...
...This is Miss Hutchinson's first important appearance in New York...
...When Irma falters, Lajos finds himself...
...Surely an interesting tale and one worthy of study by the historian, and by those not professional historians yet interested in the great movements of thought...
...The Life and Times of Bishop Challoner, by Canon Burton (London: Longmans...
...She has a self-effacing sincerity which will carry her far...
...Note: Why not a revival of The Taming of the Shrew...
...It might have been avoided...
...An old man of eighty odd years, he was, in accordance with the bar- barous custom of the time, being dragged on a hurdle some three miles out of Hereford to be executed...
...Is this a real surging of manhood--or just an escape...
...Some of Mr...
...In that county, the last pipe before friends part, is still called a "Kemble pipe," and up to recent years on the death anniversary of the martyr, the scattered Catholic men of the neighborhood used to collect round his grave and there in solemn silence smoke a pipe to his memory...
...But its one great defect rankles none the less...
...The Poor Nut--One good hippodrome scene and little else...
...He simply withdraws from the house...
...Kearney himself a few years from now--would find ample power in the theme itself without tawdry ornamentation...
...Can one possibly he more explicit...
...Dwight Frye and Josephine Hutchin- son, as the young couple about whom the action centres, con-tribute rich feding and admirable restraint...
...19oo...
...the man to whom we owe the original...
...Aden's weak-willed heroine obscured by the glamor of Katherine Cornell's all-too-good acting...
...From the four winds of the earth in very truth, for there were first the French exiled priests and religious orders at the time of the French Revolution...
...These and similar heroes are described in this book...
...Kelly strikes near home--- in fact, just next door...
...Why does Walter Craig meet his problem by not meeting it...
...A Man's Man tells with caustic realism and fine sympathy of the futile ambitions, the depress- ing handicaps, the childish credulity, and the tragic mistakes of that generation which has lost the sturdy character of its day-laboring parents but is still unequipped for "the great rise" of American life...
...The author gives a complete outline of Mrs...
...It is not, unfortunately, one of those plays which, given its characters, seems to work out its own conclusion...
...The spirit breathed and the bones began to be re-clothed with flesh, until today the fair face of Catholicity shines once more in England...
...Thus he will understand and appreciate the next book which he should endeavor to secure--Modern British Martyrology, in which is incorporated that great work, Challoner's Memoirs of Mis- sionary Priests...
...What should be restrained background becomes blatant foreground--or, if you prefer, what should be an in-sistent, perverse but subdued accompaniment, ends by nearly drowning out the melody...
...The result is a play one cannot recommend, in which is embedded a theme and a portrait of such beauty as to demand rare praise...
...She sets about it by various subtle means---by being cold or disagreeable to Walter Craig's old friends, by gaining com- plete dominion over his every action, by making her house a domestic god, perfect in every surface detail, never to be de- filed by cigarette ashes, misplaced ornaments, or even by flowers "because the petals fall all over the rugs...
...The Green Hat--Mr...
...The Show-Off had no such structural weakness...
...Craig is made far too conscious of what she is doing...
...Molnar has sinned greatly against his own art in engulfing them with maudlin trash...
...Accused--A fine Belasco cast, headed by E. H. Sothern, in an absorbing play of Brieux's...
...The Vortex--Starts anywhere and ends nowhere, but has good theatrical quality in two scenes...
...And yet in spite of everything, when all seemed hopeless it was as if the word of the Lord came as in the prophecy--"A quatour ventis veni, spiritus, et insuffla super interfectos istos et reviviscant...
...His new play, Craig's Wife, is an honest, at times a brilliant thrust at the woman whose marriage instinct is limited to the security which it gives her life and to the visible property which is the symbol of that security...
...Its hero was serenely unconscious of his own bombast...
...Of course she is admittedly digging for her own ends-- but even the blackest spade would probably call itself a garden implement...
...Acting, direction, and the broad lines of characterization combine to make this an exceptional play...
...Some good Chris- tian asked if he could do anything for the old man, who replied that he would like a pipe of tobacco which was at once pro- vided for him, and after smoking it, he went to his death con- tentedly...
...She has refused to let her soaring melody be dimmed by the kettledrums--she has made it the triumphant song of a little pilgrim, crude in expression, sublime in instinct...
...You can almost hear them breathing "just like Mrs...
...Not an easy part to play before prosaic audiences--not easy lines to save from ridicule--not a truth easy to translate in gesture, in voice, in futile pathetic movement, in a sudden awakening of mature instinct and fierce rebellion--not easy --but June Walker has done it...
...This effect comes more from faulty construction than from the necessities of the story...
...Is Zat So.t--The best character comedy of the year, hung on a poor plot...
...Molnar has spoken with a tenderness, an understanding and a delicate and veiled symbolism that not only quicken the heart but cleanse the crust of the spirit...
...So-and-so...
...For that reason it was a better play...
...It does, however, leave you with one curious question...
...That is why its inherent interest surmounts even obvious de- fects...
...Applesauce--Amusing characterization in a comedy of smalltown life...
...One gathers she has reacted from a mother who always gave into others and suffered for her weakness...
...He is like an orchestral leader with an over-fondness for his drums and grasses...
...Craig's Wife G EORGE KELLY, the author of The Show-Off, has turned his attention from group portraiture to that of a selfish woman...
...4 Man's Man T HE Stagers, with Edward Goodman directing, have launched their season with the first full length play of a new author, Patrick Kearney...
...This is the theme and these are the characters that should have made The Glass Slipper a great play...
...The Pelican--Well acted, well constructed, play on a thin and unpersuasive motive...
...They Knew What They Wanted--Sin, punishment and forgiveness in swift and powerful sequence...
...then the Irish who fled from famine and fever...
...The worst of characters nearly always discovers an imaginary excuse for gross selfish- hess...
...If the delight or derision with which the audience greets each new evidence of Mrs...
...Wtu'te Cargo--Only if you like to be harrowed to no purpose...
...Some of it shows poor judgment...
...In Selecting Your Plays (The following list includes allplays reviewed in The Commonweal--favorably or otherwise---which are still play- ,nO m New York...
...There is no real suspense...
...Kearney's realism is dramatic and serves an honest purpose...
...The conscientious reader who desires to prepare a suitable historical background and who has plenty of time, should certainly read first of all, Cardinal Gasquet's Henry VIII and the English Monasteries (London: Nimmo...
...The author steps too frequently before the footlights, in the person of one or another of his characters, to explain what is happening or about to happen...
...Those who saw Miss Walker in the Guild's production of Processional last year will not be surprised to learn that she has created from the lines of Molnar a portrait of astonishing honesty, elusiveness and tender beauty--the child turned woman, whose soul rebels so heroically against the miserable realities of her life that she creates a poetic reality of her own, an imaginative life in which she moves and breathes and has her being--a girl who saves her pennies to take a gallery seat weekly at the theatre to revel in the creations of that dramatist "with the common first name of Shakespeare and the beautiful family name of Repertory"-- who loves the blue light of the moon--whose fierce passion for beauty and goodness sublimates the least detail of her drab and sordid life...
...But the theme of Craig's November 4, 1925 THE COMMONWEAL 651 Wife is deeper, nearer the core of real human difficulties...
...Well might the question be asked which is inscribed around a view of Oxford hanging in the room in the Birmingham Oratory, where, in days gone by, the Cardinal (not then a Cardinal) used to see visitors--"Fili hominis, putasne vivent ossa ista...
...You have here a wife who is determined to feather her own nest...
...things which shower a light of hope into this dim, distressing atmosphere...
...There may even be some honest enough to accept the tale the mirror tells...
...Craig's implacable character be any criterion, this country of ours must be .overridden with such women...
...19o9) is a most admirable account of a truly great man who lived through the worst days, including the Gordon Riots...
...The Theatre Guild has assigned to Miss June Walker the part of little Irma Szabo, the orphan drudge in a Budapest boarding house reeking with degradation...
...To me, it had the aspect of an unfinished play---or if not, then one with a very futile last gesture...
...Molnar, the cheap showman, has tried to efface Molnar, the tender poet...
...Far beneath his wavering outer mass, beneath his surface brutal- ity, lies a spirit like her own, slow to be aroused, slow to sum- mon its own strength, but full of the rumor of beauty and a stronger will...
...The awakening and final revolt of Walter Craig become a source of popular joy...
...Stolen Fruit--In which Ann Harding achieves greatness and lifts a good play to distinction...
...There is no excuse for his adoption of the current blasphemy fad...
...Hamlet--A new and superb interpretation by Waiter Hampden in the heroic mood...
...These Charming People--Cyril Maude and Edna Best tiptoeing on Arlen d~bris...
...There can be little doubt that Mr...
...But in the last act, you find something very fine indeed~a quality of forgiveness, mutual and self-understanding, and a humble willingness to begin a11 over again...
...It is altogether an admirable piece of acting...
...Too much box-office blasphemy...
...Chrystal Herne has given a minutely perfect portrayal of Mrs...
...He has created one character of amazing beauty and poignancy, and tried to hide the fact by a curtain of cheap twaddle...
...And to make the points clearer, Mrs...
...These two incongruous spirits meet at last, freeing each other of their ignoble chains...
...Craig's character, in the first act...
...Hay Fever--A mildly stimulating comedy of character without plot...
...Craig calls herself a spade--which is hardly credi- ble...
...For the most part, these are sordid and hardened people with whom Molnar deals, and he pays them the unnecessary tribute of too much pseudo-clever treatment, at times ironical, nearly always satirical, and again simply gross...
...650 THE COMMONWEAL November 4, I925 THE PLAY By R. DANA SKINNER The Glass 8lipper F ~ERENC MOLNAR has done an extraordinary thing...
...Wall prophesied, and truly, that he would be the last to suffer death for the Cathollc faith in England, and Kemble immortalized himself with the populace in a curious way...
Vol. 2 • November 1925 • No. 26
