The Play
Skinner, R. Dana
528 THE COMMONWEAL October 6, 1926 THE...
...Young people will want to read it and own it...
...those for whom it is intended...
...in and out on leading strings, and utter the most inopportune platitudes at exactly the most exasperating moment...
...Broadway has had every adjective applied to will reproduce blasphemous language but avoid true vulgarity it except those of restraint or qualification...
...ERNEST SUTHERLAND BATES, Ph.D., formerly professor of philosophy at read with pleasure and edification even by their elders...
...His wife, Lucy, holds the fort...
...In hibition or the galaxy of new-fangled crime to which it has this case, she strikes an admirable compromise between an given birth...
...When Lucy consents to let the stranger to boys and girls...
...In this she succeeds, but not in holding his love after he has regained his health...
...Price $1.75 K. R. STEEGE, an American now residing in Italy, is the author of We of Italy...
...Abbott, as well as its youthful producer, Jed Harris, have had But because fewer people seem to respect the name of Christ the almost unique experience of finding the newspaper critics than the dictates of the great god "taste," play after play of one mind...
...foolish enough to accept the blandishments of Steve Crandall In the second place, the authors have very wisely confined (admirably played by Robert Gleckler) the chief of the lower themselves to telling the story...
...The program gives credit to the play itself fade as soon as possible...
...As to the further general question of bald speech showered with superlatives as carelessly as one would turn the about bald subjects, I need only report that the elimination garden hose on a pet lawn...
...CLEMENT WOOD is the author of Poets of America, Glad Earth, and other books...
...It is true, of course, that the unquenchable confidence in his ultimate success-is one of those very timeliness of the material and the extent to which the rare and perfect characterizations which place an actor, oversituations of the play depend upon circumstances of the mo- night, in the ranks of the notables...
...amount of material Saint Francis' life furnishes just those MARY SETON is a new contributor to The Commonweal...
...The audience is quite free to draw its own con- innate refinement and the borrowed vultarity of her surroundclusions...
...Jed Harris on a novel by Fulton Oursler, is in most respects an extremely himself has had much to do with the perfection of detail which bad play, slow in action, seemingly artificial in motivation...
...If Miss The story is alive with adventure and excitement, besides Waring's presence will save her husband's life, that is all she its quality of poetic beauty...
...He lived as a child might dream of living, or play at living, stay in his room and nurse him, when Lucy herself waits and a child understands his sympathy for flowers, birds, patiently in the hall, hour after hour, "in case somebody wants animals, and his essential friendliness...
...Not one of them is a human being, in spite of the fairly competent actors who speak their lines...
...has been especially happy in signaling out from the great HARRIET SAIPSON contributes poetry to leading American publications...
...Of the future she has no real fear...
...individual mention...
...The people it sees are intensely human, each one ings...
...Why the of half a dozen vulgar expressions which the same characters entire play should not have received the obvious title of Piffle October 6, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 52 is a side-line mystery...
...is supreme...
...It has been like the pest...
...This is, after packed with marionette characters, and in theme a pallid and all, the kind of play that demands the extreme of realistic rather bilious reflection of the kind of story Bernard Shaw treatment, and that is just what Mr...
...sophisticates are through tossing their hats in the air, they will have to admit rather sheepishly that the thing they like Sandalwood best of all in Broadway is what the lowest of low-brows en- LET this be part of our written record of the work of joys even today, in the lower run of movie houses...
...The authors have taken every advantage of the work of Paul Porcasi as Nick Verdis, the proprietor of the new material to restate the oldest and simplest formula the cabaret, and of Eloise Stream, as the girl who finally shoots of melodrama without having it seem too reminiscent of the Steve Crandall in blind revenge because he has killed a rival good old days of the "10-20-30...
...In his usual charming and entertaining style Michael Williams has written . . . Composed primarily for young CONTRIBUTORS people to whom the romance and adventure that made up KATHERINE BREGY, poet and critic, is the author of Poets and Pilgrims, the life of H. Poverello are bound to appeal, it will be and The Poet's Chantry...
...EDWIN J. COOLEY is director of the Catholic Charities Probation Bureau, of New York City...
...For the moment he has been dazzled, ensnared affectionate names-"Little Brother," "Little Poor Man," by the sophistries of the irresponsible modern, as represented "The World's Friend"-will always have a special appeal in Faith Waring...
...ROBERT R. HULL, associate editor of Our Sunday Visitor, is a con- NEW YORK CHICAGO ATLANTA tributor of criticism to the general press...
...preaching it is rich in practical moral lessons...
...Only the pale, submerged, instinctive and cloying wife, Lucy, her distressed husband, and the young music teacher have received the benefit of Mr...
...For Sandalwood, based authors for the staging, but it is no secret that Mr...
...JoxN A. User, publicist, is the author of Our America, The American Citizen, Economics and the Community, and Practical Social Science...
...BROTHER FRANCIS To add supposed atmosphere and possible justification for Carpenter's attitude, a small army of relatives is introduced- OF ASSISI type characters of the most puerile and obvious sort, who march...
...CHARLES \\'H 1RTON STORK is the author of Day Dreams of Greece, and facts and anecdotes that will make his story fascinating for a compiler of an anthology on Swedish lyrics...
...It is high time, therefore, to of several decidedly crude lines would certainly not make a take honest stock of this play and to see just what qualities nickel's difference in box-office returns and would go far to it has that would merit its extraordinary reception...
...His story is both simple and thrilling...
...But for the sake of America's Lastly, the play is staged, cast, and directed with excep- most prolific playwright, Owen Davis, let the memory of the tional fidelity and skill...
...Unfortunately, in the cast colliding with each other as inevitably and fatally as a herd of nineteen people, there is hardly one who does not deserve of horses wearing blinders and with no guiding reins...
...She has only instincts to fall By MICHAEL WILLIAMS back upon, and, fortunately for her, those instincts are sound...
...She is wholly ungifted with logical thought...
...They have not yielded to New York bootleggers...
...are bound to love and admire...
...To him, everything is "piffle"-includof why it is necessary to use the name of Christ for the sake ing, for the moment, his recent infatuation with a wealthy of realism, when it is not equally necessary to use any one music teacher of New York, one Faith Waring...
...But perhaps for that very reason, it bristles right now life and a girl who still retains some ideas of decency, although with amazing vitality...
...Davis's serious attention, and of these three the music teacher is so colorlessly acted as to furnish no foil whatsoever for -either the husband or wife...
...But dramatic plot...
...Harris has given it...
...Pauline Lord, actress...
...Lee Tracy, you have an amazing but fertile field for ploughing, sowing, as the pathetically conceited "hoofer" of Nick Verdis's cabaret and reaping the oldest and most enduring elements of melo- -the man with unbounded faith in his own personality and drama in entirely fresh terms...
...But no manager has yet answered the question signed himself to die...
...Editor of The Commonweal They see beneath the glamour of Eddie's new ideas to the fact that he is fundamentally on her own level, incurably of the same mental calibre as the very people against whom he ST...
...But one part and one actress cannot make a play...
...terial-the inner workings of a Broadway cabaret with the I mentioned above the expert casting as one of the outstandvery modern complication of bootleggers and highjackers...
...A. W. G. RANDALL is an attache of the British legation at the Holy See...
...She is a woman the strong, vivid story of a great man, a great hero, a great of splendid if unreasoning faith...
...It is, to be sure, another of those parts in which she must convey everything through pantomime and small pathetic gestures-an almost inarticulate part, a woman torn between self-pity, the shock of her husband's infidelity, the intensity and earnestness of her love for him, and her inability to understand in any way his sudden detestation of their mode of life and thought...
...Eddie Carpenter, piano salesman, is in freely and probably with the same hypocritical justification bed with sleeping sickness...
...Its authors, Philip Dunning and George attempt at realism, they know that the plays would be dosed...
...528 THE COMMONWEAL October 6, 1926 THE PLAY By R. DANA SKINNER Broadway would inevitably use in real life...
...DANIEL HENDERSON, poet and biographer, is the author of A Harp in the Winds, a hook of verse...
...ATnerica...
...But against all obstacles, Miss Lord as Lucy Carpenter, has created an unforgettable picture...
...Each part, no matter how small, has The third important element is its well-constructed melo- been given an expert and individualized characterization...
...Without any attempt at GERTRUDE CALLAGHAN is the author of two books of poems, witch Girl, and Inheritance...
...likes to tell...
...In such a part, Miss Lord saint...
...4. GRATTAN O'LEARY, prominent Canadian journalist, is the editor of Unobtrusively it holds up a hero whom our boys and girls the Ottawa Journal...
...Williams ELIZABETH S. KITE, affiliated with the American Catholic Historical Society, is a well-known writer on historical subjects...
...something," we know that her apparent withdrawal and acceptance of defeat is her real approach to victory...
...Playing opposite him is ment, deprive this particular piece of much of its lasting inter- Sylvia Field as "Billie" Moore, a recent arrival in cabaret est...
...However, Carpenter, having condemned everything to the regions of piffle, is startled into a new interest in life by the arrival in his home of Faith Waring herself...
...After the high-brows and bootlegger whom she was to marry, deserve special note...
...Once more, as in so many of development into a more serious play through the grace productions of this kind, the name of Christ is bantered about of expert handling...
...gives the play its immediate sense of reality...
...BOSTON DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO GRENVILLE VERNON is a writer on musical subjects for the American magazines...
...THE MACMILLAN COMPANY GLADYS CHANDLER GRAHAM is a frequent contributor of criticism to current publications...
...The aspect of Broadway which has not raised enough argu- There is, to start with, a fairly novel situation, calculated ment is the inclusion of a considerable amount of quite un- best to serve the purposes of farce-comedy, and only capable necessary and offensive material...
...Miss Field will always be an actress the temptation of making any comment whatsoever on pro- of great charm, no matter what part she may be assigned...
...Here ing reasons for Broadway's effective realism...
...the University of Oregon, is a writer on educational and literary- subjects...
...improve the general odor of the play without lessening its deFirst of all, it deals with comparatively new theatrical ma- vastating comment on a certain type of life...
...EILLEN Drcc:,x is a prominent Catholic poet of New Zealand...
...It becomes rather life and thought of Mount Royal, New Jersey, and also of his tiresome to repeat constantly the same argument against the =ife, Lucy, that he refuses to fight the disease and has resame offense...
...He is so tired of the standardized used by other managers for other plays...
...He has written wants...
...She defies every convention and comes to his bedside to nurse LITTLE him back to life...
...Michael Williams is a writer who would bring out all sides of such a life...
...She has made the part something more than the mere looking out upon life through his own limits of vision and luckless heroine of old melodrama...
...FRANCIS of Assisi who has been given so many fulminates...
...If these managers wereH ERE is a play about which there has been much too little sincere with themselves and honest with their public in their argument...
Vol. 4 • October 1926 • No. 22
