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FROM THE ARCHIVES By its fourth decade of publication, Commonweal had secured a place of eminence—as well as a reputation for controversy—in American journalism. Largely defined by the work of...

Art on its own terms The late Walter Kerr's theater criticism appeared in these pages in the early 1950s, but his artistic insight endures See why (November 1996)

THE LAST WORD ART ON ITS OWN TERNS Walter Kerr Walter Kerr, who died last month at the age of eighty-three, was Commonweal's drama critic from 1950-52. This article is condensed from his "Where the...

Shakespeare and Shopping-Baskets (December 1955)

BRITISH AND AMERICAN PLAYS Shakespeare and Shopping-Baskets WALTER KERR T HE difference between the British theater and the American theater is partly a matter of Shakespeare and partly a...

Art and the Boxoffice (April 1955)

THE MONEY-MAKERS Art and the Boxoffice WALTER KERR T HE notion that the common customer might come back to the theater if the theater took some pains to please the common customer is, in our...

Catholics and Hollywood (December 1952)

Catholics and Hollywood "THE POWER WHICH CATHOLIC SPOKESMEN HAVE COME TO WIELD OVER THE MOTION PICTURE HELPED MAKE THE MOTION PICTURE EVEN MORE COMMONPLACE THAN IT NEED HAVE ...

The Stage (July 1952)

THE STAGE WISH YOU WERE HERE ee SH You Were Here," the new musical for which Joshua Logan has served as co-producer, co-author, director, and choreographer, is listed as an adaptation of Arthur...

The Stage (June 1952)

THE STAGE SUNDAY BREAKFAST IN THIS saga of small-town suffering, authors Emery Rubio and Miriam Balf have made a conventional beginners' mistake. They have assumed that so long as they maintain an...

The Stage (June 1952)

THE STAGE NEW FACES OF 1952 E jEONARD Sillman's new musical opens with a juicy collection of old faces—a series of photographic panels celebrating the talents of Francis X. Bushman, Eva Tanguay,...

The Stage (May 1952)

THE STAGE OF THEE I SING T HE only thing missing from this plush, polished, and well-paced revival of America's most famous musical satire is the target. The same old arrows fly into the air, but...

The Stage (May 1952)

THE STAGE THE MALE ANIMAL T HERE are two moments in the current production of "The Male Animal"—both of them hard to describe precisely — which seem to me to achieve perfection in the way of...

The Stage (May 1952)

THE STAGE CANDIDA THIS newest production of George Bernard Shaw's comedy does not suffer from Olivia de Havilland's simpering, schoolgirlish performance alone. It is one of the worst all-round...

The Stage (May 1952)

THE STAGE THE CHASE HORTON Foote's new play opens on a Texas sheriff's office—neatly and comfortably designed by Albert Johnson—one spring evening. Sheriff Hawes' wife is expecting a baby, and...

The Stage (May 1952)

THE STAGE OF NOTE THE BRASS RING IRVING Elman's comedy about the yearnings of the middle-aged for the romantic freedoms they denied themselves as youngsters has already been withdrawn, and there...

The Stage (April 1952)

"Call yourself a Minister, but don't call yourself a Christian." Nomadelphia has become an embarrassment not only to the Communists. To use Cardinal Schuster's own terms: the Gospel has come into...

The Stage (April 1952)

The Stage Three Wishes for Jamie T HERE is very little shaterial for a full-scale musical in Charles O'Neal's simple fairy tale about a young Irishman Who wishes three wishes, gets them in a...

The Stage (April 1952)

The Stage Flight into Egypt G EORGE TABORI's first play has for its principal character a voluntary expatriate who never finds .the new life he is looking for. It is pretty much Mr. Tabori's...

The Stage (March 1952)

ing fun of Axel Heyst. I ~have always liked him." At ,this point I want to ,take Conrad's novel so seriously as to suggest that ~t laas other meaning ,han might easily be read into it in I914....

The Stage (March 1952)

However, the Board did ~ndude in its report a twen,tyseven-'page supplement ~hich reveals a ,lot of valuable informa,6on. Sample: Only 5.4% (not 54% but 5.4%) of ,the longshoremen employed in...

The Stage (March 1952)

The Stage Mrs. McThing M ARY,, CHASE, who was respondble for "Harvey ~zas now written a fancasy aimed at ch,ildren. It is really wri~tten [or children and aimed at their intolerable parents,...

The Stage (March 1952)

The Stage Venus Observed T HE most i*~expl,ic~ble thhag about this Theatre Guild prod.uction of Christopher Fry's comedy is th,at Laurence Oli~ier, w~ho commissioned dae play, performed it...

The Stage (February 1952)

The Stage Williams and Dickens E MLYN WILLIAM,S, ~ho is normally busy wri~"rag, directing, mad a~fir~g his own plays, has taken a year or ,two off xo g~ troup~r~g through En,glaz~d...

The Stage (February 1952)

JUST PUBLISHED STORIES FOR DISCUSSION By William L. Defy Author o/ CATECHETICdL STORIES FOR CHILDREN Seventeen short stories with e series of questions for discussion at the end of each....

The Stage (February 1952)

and create shyness, which sometimes reaches pathological proportions. Shyness ,has been a major problem anmng Northerners. It has not been solved because Freud named it the inferiority complex....

The Stage (February 1952)

show so si, r~g~karly lime insi,ffht in,to ,themselves and so litde pl~in i:r~M,l~gen,ce ? W~hy must they be ,pe~le v~ho are dogged.ly ,tryin,g to ~ive in the past and aecord,ing to the ~d,e of a...

The Stage (February 1952)

the p~,tatlve frustTa~ions ~ sdhoekeachers to accoum for the existence of .our s~,pposed matriarchy. "Yhat we submit to our w~men because submission is a pattern of acrion learned ,in our puM~c...

The Stage (January 1952)

To rdig/ons who ask~ her ~bo~t her voea~i~ aad feared .to take ,her ,from ~ e ,in,telleetual labors .tha,t she wo~d scarcely have ,~ime/or as a C~rme~ke, Edith S,tefia replied simply: "I.t ,is...

The Stage (January 1952)

coedlng ~o~g fine dark road, they finally arrived in the middle of the rdgbt, ~n H.azleton, a distance of seven trfiles, where they fotm, d ~eker. In spite of every effort of file doctor, Col.l's...

The Stage (January 1952)

The Stage CLEOPATRA AND FRIENDS S HAW always delighted in cmrrpa~ing himself w~th Stmkespeare, but i+t wasn't am til Laurence Olivier and Vivien Lei~ deoided to play "Caesar and Oleol~tra"...

The Stage (January 1952)

The word .'liturgy omnes from a Greek word meaning "a public service, or public worship." So says the dictkm~ry. Then how can wt h~e a sense of liturgy tml_,r~__ the public t~kes part in ,the...

The Stage (December 1951)

tumult. I.t is arrested for being in violation of measure, as if by an English poli~amn who has no need of a gun, but is speaking soft reprimand to a citizen who is naturally 0hedieat to law....

The Stage (December 1951)

The Stage I AM A CAMERA J OHN VAN DRUTEN'S new play is set in the Berlin of z93o, jnst before the irreslsonsible and pour le sport tnventies got ~r was undoubtedly conai,n,g to thorn, and it...

The Stage (December 1951)

The Stage The Screen GIGI S oMrBoDY ould write on style a.rou d a,texth,,~k the currem production af Gigi. The basic notioaa o~ the play, taken from a novel by Colette, is flippant and amoral....

The Stage (December 1951)

terious arrd i.nfall,~Me errtity. Yes, there are aJbtrses, but if they could be brought to the knowled.ge of the proper authorities they w~,uld soon be riffhted. In the meantime, il ne [aut pas...

The Stage (November 1951)

The Stage PAINT YOUR WAGON G,DAINT Your Wagon" is ~hat you might ~ a 1 virtuous musical. It is accurate in its ba~rutmds, sincere in its characteriz~,tion, careftd in its plotting. And it is, I...

The Stage (November 1951)

I quote from Wes~brook Pegler in the N.Y. JournalAmerican, Oct. 3, I951: "The Mr. Big that many gossips have been hinting *bout lately is Bill MeCorm,ack, the ,boss of the port of New York ....

The Stage (November 1951)

accepted by Conservatives and Laborites alike, as men would stipulate the existence of rain. I wa~nt here to pay tribute to the Cotumb.ia Broadcasting System. Under the guidance of Howard K....

The Stage (November 1951)

"']p O YNBEE reminds us: " . . . Three c~uarters of manI kind are today still living the traditional life o.f an agricultural civilization in which there is no reserve of virgin sell and...

The Stage (November 1951)

This is worse than not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doir~g. The unproved charges malce men lose confidence in Mr. Jessup. You a, id the man making the unproved indictment...

The Stage (October 1951)

But apparently this is not sufficient for Dr. Gddstein. M,urray sho,tdd not have allowed the ClO to enter any organization that had Co ~mmunists in it. He charges that "both Murray and Carey have...

The Stage (October 1951)

~aall part of it, understand. If this were the only evidence, I certainly would not be here." But the rest of his evidence was as little, as feoble as that. It was as much as he had ever offered...

The Stage (October 1951)

rude and teach Mm to tJve in more modem conditions and to reach a higher standard of living. T, trose who want to go too fast are mistaken. Those Moo deny the blaoks the opportunity to make...

The Stage (October 1951)

The Stage OUT WEST OF EIGHTH PLAYWRITING is an exceptionally difficult craft, and many promising plays fail because somewhere along the line the tooling job has gone awry. Some plays, however,...

The Stage (September 1951)

The Stage DIAMOND LIL AMONG the broken hearts of Broadway, mine roust now 'be counted. I had never seen Mae West, or her cornball melodrama, in the theatre, but had conceived a great devotion...

The Stage (September 1951)

The Stage LACE ON HER PETTICOAT AIMEE STUART'S play, imported from London, is an extremely tedious trifle having to do with the caste system of the 1890's and its effect upon the friendship...

The Case for Ikon Art (September 1951)

The Case for Ikon Art By WALTER KERR THE saccharine lithography and amateur plastering which deface most American Catholic churches in the guise of religious ant have come in for their share of...

The Stage (August 1951)

The big news, however, is Dolores Gray. Miss Gray's earlier performances in this country were unspectacular— she was in "Seven Lively Arts" but all / can remember is Nan Wynn—and the right to the...

The Stage (July 1951)

The Stage FAILURE AT THE TOP THE American National Theatre and Academy is going through a series of soul-struggles at the moment, and one of the lesser iproblems now being hashed over has to do...

The Stage (July 1951)

The Stage GOOD INTENTIONS PROFESSIONAL critics are supposed to be an unsentimental lot, unmoved by considerations other than the quality of the play which is set before them. And it is perfectly...

The Stage (July 1951)

The Stage SEVENTEEN I HAD A VERY good time at this Sally BensonHassard Short musical version of .the old Tarkington materials, partly because Miss Benson, who adapted the book, has shown...

The Stage (June 1951)

285 The Stage COURTIN' TIME "COURTIN' Time" has for its principal assets Joe E. Brown as a New England widower bent on remarrying and Carmen Mathews as one of his four prospects. Mr. Brown,...

The Stage (June 1951)

The Stage REVIVALS APPROXIMATELY one-third of the plays produced during this past season were classified as 'revivals,' and the fact that some twenty out of sixty shows offered were the work of...

The Stage (June 1951)

The Stage An Appeal A RCHB1SHOP Nicholas Dobrecic, Roman Catholic Primate of Serbia, recently wrote the care Mission in Yugoslavia and told how much relief that organization's food packages...

The Stage (June 1951)

IDIOT'S DELIGHT IT SEEMED to me that the City Centex revival of Robert E. Sherwood's old anti-war play was interesting on a number of counts. For one thing, Mr. Sherwood's status as a...

The Stage (June 1951)

The Stage FLAHOOLEY "FLAHOOLEY" is "Finian's Rainbow" gone wrong. "Finian" was an odd combination of simple fantasy, social satire, and music which somehow or other managed to b'lend its...

The Stage (May 1951)

The Stage STALAG 17 THE contemporary theatre has somehow or other lost sight of the value of simple narrative, apparently having bequeathed this virtue to the movies—and now to television—while...

The Stage (May 1951)

The Stage THE LITTLE BLUE LIGHT EDMUND WILSON begins his play by projecting us into the not too distant future, when American liberalism shall be all but defeated at the hands of pressure...

The Stage (May 1951)

The Stage GRAMERCY GHOST JOHN CECIL HOLM has, unluckily, written a comedy without a situation. He has a vague sort of premise—a Revolutionary War ghost continues to haunt a Gramercy Park...

The Stage (April 1951)

The Stage NIGHT MUSIC IT IS ONE of the policies of anta—the American National Theatre and Academy—to encourage offBroadway activity, and anta's current decision to sponsor an Equity Library...

The Stage (April 1951)

The Stage THE KING AND I RODGERS and Hammerstein seem to me to be marking time with "The King and I." I don't know why these two men, in whose debt we all are, shouldn't be allowed to mark a...

The Stage (April 1951)

The Stage THE AUTUMN GARDEN IT IS AS impossible to dismiss Lillian Hellman's new play as it is to give it an unqualified endorsement. Miss Hellman has begun by touching on what is surely a...

The Stage (March 1951)

The Stage ROMEO AND JULIET IT is the fashion nowadays to ask for a youthful Juliet, as though we thought girlishness to be the part's principal requirement. It seems to me that the play might...

The Stage (March 1951)

The Stage MARY ROSE I AM NOT one who holds himself impervious to either the charm or the whimsy of the late James M. Barrie, but "Mary Rose" has always seemed to me one of the feeblest and most...

The Stage (March 1951)

The Stage SPRINGTIME FOLLY WE ARE inclined to think of "the theatre" as an entity, an organization, a body of talented people who are rather loosely banded together but are nevertheless members of...

The Stage (March 1951)

The Stage HIGH GROUND CHARLOTTE HASTING'S mystery melodrama has an interesting setting and a workable plot. A police party, escorting a young woman to a prison where she will be executed for the...

The Stage (March 1951)

The Stage BILLY BUDD THE process of dramatizing a novel consists of something more than reducing it to dialogue, which is all, I am afraid, that Louis O. Coxe and Robert Chapman have done for Herman...

The Stage (February 1951)

The Stage THE ROSE TATTOO TENNESSEE Williams, to come right out with it, seems to me not only the finest playwright now working in the American theatre but in one very strict sense the only...

The Stage (February 1951)

The Stage PEER GYNT IT OCCURS to me that "Peer Gynt" is one of the booby traps of dramatic literature. At first sight it offers actor and audience an enthralling range of subject matter and emotion:...

The Stage (February 1951)

The Stage ANGEL IN THE PAWNSHOP I ONCE had a teacher who was fond of extolling the virtues of imagination. "Why, I can stand here," he would say, "and, although my body is rooted in this spot, my...

The Stage (February 1951)

The Stage DARKNESS AT NOON THE INTEREST and the distinction of the Arthur Koestler book on which this play is based lay in the cold, impersonal clarity with which it worked out an intellectual...

The Stage (January 1951)

The Stage SECOND THRESHOLD PHILIP BARRY had completed only a draft of this play when he died, and Robert E. Sherwood has supplied the necessary revision. While the talents of the two men are not...

The Stage (January 1951)

The Stage AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE DIRECTOR Robert Lewis and performers Frederic March and Morris Carnovsky have been extraordinarily astute in deciding to play Ibsen's vigorous old broadside for what...

The Stage (January 1951)

The Stage TWENTIETH CENTURY WHEN Gloria Swanson scored an enormous personal triumph in "Sunset Boulevard," there was always the nagging possibility that her comeback was as much the result of...

The Stage (January 1951)

The Stage BLESS YOU ALL THE company of this new Harold Rome-Arnold Auerbach revue play it with an oddly uncertain air, as though they were perfectly willing to do the numbers but weren't quite sure...

The Stage (December 1950)

The Stage PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS AN OLD MAN PHILLIP PRUNEAU'S first produced play, "The Cellar and the Well," takes place in something like a tenement district on the south side of Chicago. In...

The Stage (December 1950)

The Stage The Tower Beyond Tragedy JUDITH ANDERSON, having had one success with a Robinson Jeffers adaptation from the Greek —Euripides' "Medea"—has been quite naturally but not necessarily...

The Stage (December 1950)

The Stage GUYS AND DOLLS "GUYS AND DOLLS" is the kind of a show that frustrates your efforts to communicate your own pleasure with it. You are so eager to convince people of its real superiority to...

The Stage (December 1950)

The Stage THE RELAPSE RESTORATION comedy is infrequently produced, and that in itself should be enough to send anyone who is seriously interested in the theatre to the Guild's latest offering. It is...

Books (December 1950)

Books The Wisdom of the Sands. Antoine de Saint - Exupery. Translated by Stuart Gilbert, Harcourt. $4. HAILED as one of the most important French books published in the last decade,...

The Stage (December 1950)

The Stage THE LADY'S NOT FOR BURNING CCHRISTOPHER FRY has done one extremely im-portant thing: he has discovered a twentieth-century verse form for comedy. Matters had got to the point where it...

The Stage (November 1950)

The Stage THE IBSEN GIRL IN AT LEAST one notable respect, Samson Raphael-son's "Hilda Crane" brings the drama of Ibsen full circle. The Ibsen heroine, whether in the Norwegian's own plays or in...

The Stage (November 1950)

The Stage THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW FREDERICK LONSDALE'S new comedy keeps try-ing to be an amiable little evening, and every once in a while it comes up with a line that is bright enough to make you...

The Stage (November 1950)

The Stage HOLD THAT TIGER- THE title of John Steinbeck's new play, "Burning Bright," is derived from William Blake's "Tiger, Tiger," and serves notice on us at once that Mr. Steinbeck has something...

The Stage (November 1950)

The Stage CALL ME MADAM THERE are two ways to write a musical comedy. One is to get an idea, the other is to get people. Rodgers and Hammerstein have been making history with the idea method, and...

The Stage (October 1950)

The Stage Les Ballets De Paris ROLAND PETIT'S choreography has achieved something of a popular success in this country largely because it has been bruited about that in his piece de resistance,...

The Stage (October 1950)

The Stage Season in the Sun WOLCOTT GIBBS, drama critic of The New Yorker, has just written his first play, and a little note in the trade magazine Variety has it that a good many Broadway...

The Stage (October 1950)

The Stage Affairs of State LOUIS VERNEUIL has had, on two occasions, seven plays running simultaneously in the theatres of Paris. At no time during his creative period in France, the program note...

The Stage (October 1950)

The Stage DAPHNE LAUREOLA AN INDIFFERENT play is often very useful as a performer's vehicle. When the performer has vast amounts of entirely personal charm and a variety of technical resources,...

The Stage (September 1950)

The Stage THE LIVE WIRE GARSON KANIN'S new comedy does not seem to be aiming at anything more than a light commercial success. In view of this, it is odd that the author has omitted most of the...

Where the Author Meets the Criti (April 1950)

Where the Author Meets the Critics Walter Kerr T HE Catholic who would deal with the...

Kerr, Walter F.

Kerry, Dear Senator

Kersbergen, by Lydwine van

Kersbergen, Lydwine van

Kershner, Howard E

KERSTEN, HERBERT H.

Kertzer, David

Kerwin, Donald

Kerwin, Jerome G.

Kesselman, Jonathan