The Play and Screen

...In addition there are apt to be two or three revivals done with enough gusto to give them fresh glamour...

...This leads to an invitation to visit the Maxwell home in Hutchinson, Kansas...

...Strong and vivid language has its place in definite characterization...

...The five or six successful plays of any one season have invariably been plays of widely differing character...

...For every kind word and for every admission that it is excellent entertainment, there are corresponding qualifications to the effect that it would not be much without Mr...

...The Up and Up IF THIS play by Eva Kay Flint and Martha Madison succeeds, it will be largely because of its fresh material (just one more aspect of racketeering) and because of a lively and novel second act...

...The hypocrisy of the whole argument for realism falls down when we see that no play of the last five years has dared to use three or four expressions—harmless except in their literal vulgarity—which are always on the lips of certain types of men...

...Something quite intangible seems to have happened to the theatre over the last twelve months...

...But the signs of such approaching relief are certainly not piercing above a drab horizon as yeit...

...But there are, I think, two other significant aspects of the apparent falling off in theatrical zest...

...It will be a year or two at the very least before the talkies as a whole reach any stimulating degree of imagination, technical assurance and provocative treatment—that is, before they stand forth clearly as a new medium of entertainment in their own right...

...As one actor put it to me recently, "the managers are all waiting to see which way the cat will jump, and what type of plays will go this season...

...A Craven comedy is never dull, and rarely invites unfriendly criticism...

...All of this is a bit silly...

...Craven has considerable ingenuity as a playwright and as much or more as an actor and director, with the result that he makes the utmost of these simple situations and turns them to richly humorous and homely account...

...The other is the sheepish stupidity of the leading men behind the scenes in the theatre world...

...As to the importance of Mr...

...Myrtle Clark as the Cinderella daughter with a voice is astonishingly good—not only in making her last-act transformation believable, but in actual singing voice as well...

...As long as the managers (especially those controling theatres or large production resources) fail to use their wits sufficiently to face this fact, and stupidly wait for a "tip" on the cat's jump, much as office boys wait for a tip on the stock market, the stage will continue in the doldrums...

...The present theatrical nadir lends, however, the hope of timely reaction...

...When Robert Grant (Frank Craven), an almost stranded theatrical road producer, does a good turn for Thomas Maxwell (George Barbier), an ink manufacturer with stomach difficulties, the two swear eternal friendship over a bottle of prescription rye...

...The facts of record simply explode this theory into a thousand bits...

...Show business as such is decreasing the function of the theatre—and the mere sensing of this fact has produced a certain discouragement among the less imaginative and less courageous theatrical producers, as also among playwrights and actors...

...THE PLAY AND SCREEN By RICHARD DANA SKINNER As the Season Opens f^OURAGE may presently emerge on Broadway in the form of an electrifying play, or the swift, novel and masterly production of some play that is only moderately good...

...I would much rather see again, for example, the Benet-Griffith production of Lincoln on the screen than Drinkwater's play...

...Pat O'Brien distinguishes himself for a restrained and excellent performance as the chief of this particular little group...

...The repeated box-office success of worthwhile plays, imaginatively staged, will induce the more substantial interests to follow the lead of Miss Le Gallienne and Jed Harris and the Guild—a process which will require brains, of course, but of the variety that can be purchased, if not possessed already...

...Craven...

...In the meantime, there is always Eva Le Gallienne and occasionally the Theatre Guild and Arthur Hopkins and Jed Harris to uphold independent common sense...

...At the Biltmore Theatre...

...The arts in general are far more dependent for vitality upon mundane conditions than they like to admit...

...One is the period of profound readjustment necessitated by the inroads of the talkies...

...The inflation of the critical balloon is never more apparent than when it tries to land solemnly on the pin points of a delightful trifle...

...Craven himself in the leading role, or that the play has technical faults and that enjoyment must not be mistaken for enthusiastic praise...

...It is simply a case of managers feeling that they can "get away with" one kind of realism and not another...

...Maxwell insists that Bob has saved his life...

...The raid on their "phone room" in the second act furnishes not only novel material but swift and effective drama...

...As entertainment or as gentle soporific, the screen stands a better chance with the revenue-producing public...

...She achieves the drab but determined daughter of the first two acts with the simplest of make-up devices and, miraculous to relate, without recourse to bone-rimmed spectacles...

...The general sheepishness of the race of theatrical dictators is merely aggravated and brought more clearly to light by the competition of the screen...

...Writers, scenic designers, actors and stage hands have all become members of labor unions (some of them slightly glorified under the titles of guilds and associations) and the ownership of theatre properties has become a group of incorporated syndicates...

...Bob somehow loses the distinction between a week-end and permanent residence, with the result that Maxwell's gratitude suffers much refrigeration...

...But the real artist has always known how to convey the illusion of vulgarity without using every phrase that vulgarity has invented...

...The greater freedom of the screen in picturing action and movement from place to place is enough to give it a definite advantage in the mere telling of a story...

...It may be partly a reflex of the listless general mind which has followed the erratic economic conditions of the world...

...George Barbier is comfortably at home as the small-town ink manufacturer with a penchant for the bottle...

...That's Gratitude...

...Among them you will generally find a salacious "smart" comedy, a realistic bit of life taken from some fairly fresh material, a romantic or perhaps costume play, one or two very homely comedies of "plain folks" and a couple of searchingly fine plays independent of time, place or plot...

...This simply harks back to that incredible fallacy that there are certain types of plays which take in one season and fail in another...

...The history of art bears out, I believe, the notion that great works have emerged from periods of intense activity and even more from activity coupled with the overflowing purses of generous patrons...

...Dramatic technique consists in nothing more mysterious or solemn than making an audience accept the mood of the author and enjoy it...

...In spite of all the impressionist new freedom which authors are seeking, a real mastery of the technique of play construction is still the only means by which the stage can hope to create illusion and excitement...

...I still believe that this prevalent custom of using the name of Christ on any and every occasion could be stopped in short order by a dignified public request—in the name of good taste and courtesy, if nothing more—from a group of leading authorities...

...Most of the characters in The Up and Up are morons of high and low degree—and most of the activity centers around a group of bookmakers manipulating various races...

...Acute suffering or a social convulsion may impart an extraordinary impetus to creative effort, but generally lethargy and business paralysis have a totally different effect...

...The talkies have, in a broad way, transferred the centre of "show business" from the stage to the screen...

...FRANK CRAVEN has more than come up to hopes in his latest comedy—by large odds the best he has written and acted in for several years...

...The rest of the play is nothing but a picture of the curiously distorted ethics and viewpoint of low-rate racketeers...

...The Commonweal requests its subscribers to communicate any changes of address two weeks in advance, to ensure the receipt of all issues...

...More and more of the parasites who cling to the New York theatre in the hope of "making a killing" on a shoestring will be forced Ito the wall by talkie competition...

...Craven's acting, what play is not improved by having in the lead the one man or woman ideally equipped for the part...

...If the way he states his mood is dull or clumsy, the audience will not enjoy it...

...He has done some excellent casting to build up his support...

...I can think of numerous stock companies who will have fun and success with this little play for many years to come, even without Mr...

...The average boredom encountered in viewing ten talkies is not as great as in seeing ten plays of the current low standard...

...At the John Golden Theatre...

...I cannot recall a single season in which the success of a play of one type has been followed by another success in a play of the same type...

...The theatre especially has become increasingly dependent upon tangible assets...

...If the author's mood is boring, the audience will not accept it...

...Nothing else could redeem what some friends of mine call the "sub-human intelligence" of its group of characters...

...Moreover, it is another of those plays which resort to constant blasphemies on the excuse of being realistic...

...Bob, however, manages to straighten out a few difficulties in the Maxwell family, and through a surprising chain of events to make a successful musical comedy star out of the plainer of the two Maxwell daughters...

...Enjoyment, which involves willingness to yield for the moment to the play's illusion, is about as solid a test of real technique as one is apt to find...

...The particular thanks he receives for his pains form the basis for an ironic third act...

...All of this means enlarged production costs, the need of greater initial capital, and an increased dependence upon the economic surplus available after the needs of industry have been met...

...Fewer plays of much higher average quality and interest will probably be the trend over the next few years, with the current season in all likelihood marking the most discouraging point of the transition...

...But there is just no such thing as a prevailing general type of successful play...

...Even the most minor parts are well cast—making the play in every respect a brisk contribution to merriment...

...But in the meantime, they have already provided a surprisingly satisfactory substitute for the average form of stage entertainment...

...Possibly for that very reason, the critics have had an amusing time of it in trying to give That's Gratitude a generous pat on the back and at the same time to preserve their dignity by pointing out its many alleged weaknesses as a technical accomplishment...