The Play
Skinner, R. Dana
September 8, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 427 THE...
...Here there is none...
...French actors, leged farce by Robert Weenolsen and Sherrel Webb, with too, have a full knowledge and command of this fundamental...
...Nor is there a Towners is a meandering, and occasionally highly amusing, single piece of good acting...
...against it...
...Perhaps that is why so many of them succeed better as stupid and inept an evening as one could well devise...
...It is only in the third act, when Mr...
...He is about to marry the daughter of an ex-saloon the producers, A. H. Woods and Arch Selwyn, seen fit to keeper...
...The whole suspense, on the every step...
...an elaborate program credit to Frank Smithson, the director, Good diction is as unrelated to national idiom as good looks- "for aid in the revision of the manuscript...
...She declaimed voice-production itself-an ability to project sound clearly to her lines and lacked variety of expression...
...This was accomso glibly when they recognize a familiar plot, seem to have plished largely through perfect repose, an unhurried sense of fallen into their own trap by lamenting the lack of standard the value of time in making a point...
...If one of the most gifted of the early season comedies...
...Here we have an dust in the eyes of the audience by making first one and then actor of real intelligence who knows just what he is doing at another character appear guilty...
...A former pal of Arnold's, "Pig Head" Bancroft, retain the presumably original English setting, all might have arrives in New York for the wedding and immediately bebeen well-for in a mystery play, it is certainly no disadvantage comes convinced that Arnold is the victim of a climbing, moneyto have strange things happen in a far-off country crowded grabbing family...
...There is little effort to throw cision by Robert Mc`Vade as Bancroft...
...The Home of momentary reality...
...through the glasses of the Calhoon family, Arnold's future inA few quite unrelated vulgarities, rather in the A. H. Woods laws...
...croft's wife showed the same keen sense of true comedy repose, And, speaking of the predominantly English cast, what amaz- and William Elliott as Arnold gave a smooth if not highly ing value rests in the pleasant and unforced diction of these pointed performance...
...a crossword puzzle...
...American atmosphere was briskly reflected in the attitude of Vic Arnold has come to New York and made a success some of the newspaper critics toward The Ghost Train...
...Had there...
...To do this, it is quite R OBERT WOOLSEY is the featured player in this alunnecessary to acquire an "English accent...
...If any possible elements of a The Home Towners good farce remain in the play, someone has buried them too G EORGE Cohan is back again-not "in person," but in deep for my vision...
...and that fact has been held This last act is really pretty poor fare...
...In this case, the conflict is T HE curious effect of importing an entirely British play between the respective narrow eye-glasses of Manhattan and and altering its dialogue and setting so as to give it an South Bend-with the honors about equally divided...
...But the very critics who yell "hokum" McWade gave to them the force of reality...
...But to have English and throughout the first act, Mr...
...The most I can posthey allow themselves to become encrusted with local prejudice sibly say in its favor is that I have not seen all the shows that -be that the New Yorker's idea of Podunkville, or the have been produced in the last three years...
...Georgia Caine as Banhokum in the present play...
...any reasonable vulgarities have been left out, you would have to search far to find them...
...Cohan allows us to see actors transplanted to the neighborhood of Rockland, Maine, everything through the Bancroft glasses...
...All in all, this is about the most account of what happens to otherwise sensible people when futile and worthless show I have seen...
...Then the truth and to have a Scotland Yard detective the chief character, begins to come out-after Bancroft's interference has done creates a certain initial scepticism and sense of unreality some- its inevitable damage-and we begin to see Bancroft himself what fatal to the mood required for a mystery "thriller...
...mulae of The Bat type of play...
...An ingenious double stage-set and some rattling good tradition, are also introduced at the instance (one suspects, dialogue make the second act spin along right merrily to its though perhaps wrongly) of the American producers...
...Even a farce can give some small illusion another play quite in the Cohan mood...
...For example, there is little or no suspense about The burden of the entire play is carried with ease and prethe identity of the detective...
...from these complicating factors, however, The Ghost Train Cohan feels obliged to straighten out everything, that the has distinct merits...
...Aside unhappy conclusion...
...Alfred Lunt, could add to his equipment the voice-production of the humblest English actors, he Honest Liars would stand almost beyond compare...
...actors on our stage, Mr...
...The truth is, American actors ducer, it is a little hard to know where to fix the blame for are lazy...
...September 8, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 427 THE PLAY By R. DANA SKINNER The Ghost Train Podunkian's view of New York...
...Miss Peg Entwistle, as Beth Calhoon, players from overseas ! It is not a question of broad or short was, with all her elusive beauty, much too reminiscent of vowels or unfamiliar inflections, but of the very essential of Helen Chandler's recent and mediocre work...
...With so many coonly that one is unfortunately born to one's looks and must operating cooks, not to mention George MacFarlane the prowork to achieve a clear speech...
...The rather a refreshing change, a shifting of emphasis from mere result of this experiment was an appalling indictment of much plot to the theme itself, a sort of enlargement of background that we are forced to endure in the theatre today...
...It lacks many of the tried and true for- tempo of the comedy lags and the mechanics of the plot squeak...
...If on the screen than on the stage...
...Personally, I found this declaimed or sung by an actor of only average ability...
...The lines which gave the play an interest several degrees higher than alone would never have carried the play, but resourceful Mr...
...I tried the experiment several times during the contrary, hangs on whether certain amazing happenings are, performance of imagining his lines as they might have been or are not, supernatural in cause...
...Circumstantial evidence is on his sidewith as many legends as rural England...
...All in all, The the farthest corner of the theatre without effort and without Home Towners, even with its langorous last act, is the best the least sense of declaiming lines...
Vol. 4 • September 1926 • No. 18
