The Play
Skinner, R. Dana
Triple Crossed SOMEHOW it seems as if anyone named Merlin ought to write a good mystery play. In fact there is no good reason why an utterly thrilling mystery should not be written around the...
...There is, after all, nothing so effective as a play that stays on the stage...
...Three other members of the company who have shown steadily improving ability are Paula Trueman, Lily Lubell, and the diminutive Sadie Sussman...
...The Last Grand Street Follies AS THE last of the Grand Street Follies will be on the boards only a few days more, and as the Neighborhood Playhouse will then close its doors for all time, we...
...It is very sad to know that so much good talent will henceforth have to fare along separate roads...
...As this is the last occasion when this particular group will appear together, perhaps the most useful tribute to pay is a comment on the individual actors...
...the only effect of these songs is to interrupt the mood, smash the sequence of wit, and destroy all semblance of characterization...
...Even the ordinary intermission is a serious theatrical problem, met generally by creating a situation of such marked suspense at the end of each act that the audience is given enough acute anticipation to carry it over the period of broken illusion...
...The perfection with which, in this review, she has caught the foibles of Jane Cowl and Laura Hope Crewsj should go far toward confirming in the public 01* managerial mind the amazing technical excellence of her work...
...My memory of The Chocolate Soldier is hazy, to say the least, but from the outset it was, as I recall, a farce packed with action...
...Both of them would benefit enormously from work under such a director as Guthrie McClintic, but of the two, it is probably Mr...
...The trick employed in Triple Crossed is the kind that can work only on the first night, and then only for a few minutes...
...That formula consists, as nearly everyone now knows, in having actors planted throughout the audience, and in having a seemingly legitimate play interrupted by a supposed accident, in which the audience soon becomes involved...
...In other words, a few of the numbers are among the best the Neighborhood has ever staged...
...The theatre is driving at the illusion of reality, and illusion, like a great dream, demands distance, quiet, and every aid to concentration...
...Someone with an ounce of judgment and common sense might have done the same thing with the Wilde comedy...
...You cannot persistently sweep the audience into the action of the play without destroying the basic illusion that is the theatre...
...The fault is by no means that of the principal actors...
...A deal of rough stuff gets throwoi about the stage, not without a flare of obvious wit, but without any special effort to improve on Broadway standards...
...Whatever the origin of the present venture, the result is deplorable...
...Who knows...
...Dorothy Sands may have some difficulty in convincing uptown managers of her amazing versatility because of their penchant for type casting...
...As Mrs...
...Hulicius, an occasional and distressing amateurish quality...
...Merlin's play was copyrighted in 1922 —thus forestalling the criticism that he had hastily copied the formula of The Spider and tried to capitalize on that undoubted success...
...But to try to mix the subtleties of Wilde drawing-room dialogue with the crude formula of a regulation musical show is like pouring old cognac into beer...
...Triple Crossed improves on these crudities by having only one stage set and by offering reasonable excuses for the dropping of the curtain...
...If only he would be content to hold to this line of work as his specialty, his artistic future would be secure and inimitable...
...Albert Carroll, in his impersonations of Mrs...
...Fiske and Ethel Barrymore, reaches the summit of his many achievements...
...The characters were exaggerated into caricatures, until the whole production became a vehicle for song and slap-stick comedy...
...Oh, Ernest/ ONE of the brightest comedies in the English language...
...After that the spell is broken, the attempted illusion becomes just buflEoonery, and the audience henceforth 's amused only at the ingenuity of the author...
...In fact there is no good reason why an utterly thrilling mystery should not be written around the character of the original Merlin, taidng a cue from Mark Twain...
...It also gains by a certain pervading sense of casual comedy, so that even when the audience is thoroughly on to the trick of the plot, it can still be amused, at the succession of devices used to continue the suspense, instead of laughing outright when it is supposed to be solemn or horrified...
...Possibly someone remembered that Shaw's Arms and the Man once masqueraded successfully as The Chocolate Soldier...
...It is one of those evenings we politely call sophisticated when we try to pretend that dirt ceases to be dirt as soon as it is written or uttered by people of nimble intelligence instead of by traveling salesmen...
...Miss Agnes Morgan as librettist and the company at large show just how piercingly good they can be when they make the effort...
...Such is the rule of contrast...
...Even if the critics maintain partial silence, word of mouth gossip is enough to put the subsequent audiences on their guard...
...The feeblest moments of The Miracle were surely the times when characters of the play swept through the audience and when one was acutely conscious of grease paint and costume...
...It springs from the plain human fact that we can identify ourselves more easily with something set well apart from us than with something surrounding us too closely...
...Perhaps because of the similarity of method, the program is careful to note that Mr...
...He has still, however, and shares with Mr...
...In the case of The Spider, which took itself very seriously, the reaction from the first surprise was very much of an anti-climax, permitting the audience to snicker when the lines called for shivers and chills...
...The idea that a picture needs a frame is more than an arbitrary convention...
...must accept this fifth edition of Grand Street pranks more as an occasion for lament and farewell than as a performance to be measured on its own account...
...Loebell has shown a distinct improvement in the last year, gaining in poise and diction and range...
...The whole idea was born wrong, and a desolate and incompetent chorus of about eight young ladies adds measurably to the discord...
...His genius is an odd one...
...Miss Lubell has a habit of doing whatever is assigned to her neatly and well, while Sadie Sussman deserves a recognized place on Broadway for the comic and satirical quality of her rapid-fire dancing...
...At best, the possible illusion can last only for a few seconds...
...Of the men of the company, aside from Albert Carroll, the most conspicuous members have been Otto Hulicius and Marc Loebell...
...However that may be, F. S. Merlin has written in Triple Crossed a mystery which, except for the first scene, goes The Spider one better in mixing up audience and stage...
...There is, in the story of this young man who tries to keep two identities going at once, more than the average amount of musical comedy plot...
...To convert it successfully into a musical comedy would mean discarding practically all the original dialogue and substituting for it a libretto of fairly crude and obvious action...
...Moreover, there were awkward moments in The Spider when a shifting of scenery broke right through the attempted illusion...
...In the occasional interludes, when real wit is allowed to have its turn...
...Neither The Spider nor Triple Crossed can compare for an instant in real power to the illusion of mystery created by The Bat...
...Or perhaps someone merely had a nightmare...
...Instead, someone has tried to keep the play almost intact, and to do the conversion simply by inserting songs and dances here and there...
...But he does achieve the essence of her voice and mannerisms so exactly as to leave one bewildered and convulsed...
...He is singularly bad in so-called straight parts, but the moment you give him a very definite character to attack or the chance for a female impersonation, he manages somehow to get so completely inside his part as to create an almost perfect illusion...
...Hulicius who will accomplish the most...
...There was little or no attempt to keep the refinements of Shavian wit...
...Only the thread of plot remained to identify the source of the story...
...Of course...
...In spite of these improvements on The Spider, however, there is no doubt that Triple Crossed shares vdth its chief competitor the handicap of a wrong conception of the theatre...
...Miss Trueman has all the makings of a very competent actress in her own right, plus a rare ability at mimicry...
...The censored dramatic fare of the last season furnishes the greater part of the material for satire, and these Follies partake largely and in Rabelaisian mood of the very things they satirize...
...His use of make-up is always effective, his stage presence and voice are naturally good, and he shows promise of flexibility...
...The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, now makes its appearance as a Broadway musical comedy under the above abbreviated title...
...Fiske, for example, he makes almost no effort through make-up to counterfeit that venerable lady...
...The whole point is that the Wilde comedy is one of mood and lines rather than action...
...This is said with all due reverence for the attempts of more serious producers—as in The Miracle—to extend the sphere of illusion...
...In the last two years she has been given many parts which, for her, became triumphs of sheer audacity...
Vol. 6 • June 1927 • No. 4
