Mid-Season News and Notes of the Theatre
Mid-Season News and Notes of the Theatre The Week on the Stage By Joseph T. Shipley SLIP O* THE PEN •PARDON MY ENGLISH." Book by Herbert Fields. Mveie by George Gerekwin. Lyrice by...
...GOOD FRENCH FUN "MON COEUR BALANCE" ("My Heart Hesitate...
...The Gerahwins did their good ahare for "Of Thee I Sing"—though the feeblest part of that waa the lyrica...
...Especially when the monster of vivisection is played by De Wolf Hopper, who bends his lank body from musical comedy to make a foreboding and forbidding fiend...
...A delightfully presented mixup, with French dressing...
...Every foot of the feature lengdj picture is the official war depart ment film of one or another of tW eight combatant natio* which pa* ticipated in the World War...
...this will be the first performance in the U. S.—at the Orange Grove Theatre of Los Angeles, today (February 18...
...NEW HISTORY SOCIETY GIVES LBCTUBK SERUM ON "PLANNING A NEW SOCIAL, ORDER" Tomorrow evening (Sunday) at 8.30 o'clock, the first of a aeries of seven public lectures on "Planning a New Social Order" will be given in the Oak Room of tho Rits Carlton...
...By Crane Wilbur...
...Lyrice by Ira Gerehwiu...
...The Basshe play, which is built along constructivist lines, and calls for a cast of thirty and a chorus of a hundred, is being directed by the author, who continues in it the -—--—«» attack upon existing conditions for which he became known In hit works for the New Playwright in New York...
...Perhaps I was not attuned to its magic, but to me there seemed none...
...Holmes' picture of old Russia was greateat at the discussion of the influence of religion upon the people...
...After the farce-melodrama "Whistling in the Dark" of last season, they offered Rachel Crothers' delightful social comedy, "As Husbands Go," and have now followed that with that thriller of the last decade, Crane Wilbur's "The Monster...
...it lacks that definite degree of disappointment...
...But alas, for the nonce Inspiration seems to have abandoned the men responsible for the rest of the presentation...
...there are good song possibilities...
...The work they do is Trojan...
...nor the Commissioner whose daughter taw through the disguise, yet married the guy...
...The remainder of the cast speed through their set tasks in accomplished fashion...
...Within the limits of one theatrical custom, a good melodrama of one year will serve in another...
...Until the middle of next week there is still time to laugh at one of the most amusing of recent French farces, "My Heart Hangs in the Balance,' the current film at the 5th Avenue Playhouse, where many delightful picturea have been shown...
...An angry dad, discovering it's not his daughter, wants to know who the girls may be—with the ultimate result that our poor not yet married friend Is traveling about with three sisters (one real) until he marries someone he was never engaged to...
...With Thursday nights omitted because Jack Pearl must broad cast, "Pardon My English" show* this comedian and Lyda Roberti twisting the tongue to their devious ends...
...Nor can one say the show is a bad one...
...Wilhelm Solzbaoher, International Secretary of the World League of Catholic Youth...
...Interest in Mr...
...At the Waldorf...
...Tho Wee and Leventhal revivals are one of the interesting features of the season, with valid variety...
...The first is word that Douglas B. Krantzor, whose name is not new on other pages of The New Leader, has completed a plav entitled "Reunion on the Hill," which will be presented at the Roerich Theatre, New York, on February 26...
...At the Fifth Avenue Playhouee...
...returns home with a clear heart and his mind on his fiancee —to find a strange woman in his bed...
...TOWARD A PEOPLE'S THEATRE Two items of interest, among plays of seemingly direct approach toward a people's theatre, are before us...
...At the Majettie...
...the lady could Lyda great flock of fellows after her, with her siren ways...
...The mistress, not thus easily put off, follows, finds the girl, notifies the prospective father-in-law that his daughter is sleeping with her husband two days too soon...
...These lectures will be given under the auspices of the New History Society...
...and we have not grown beyond the horror technique this play employs...
...Hospitalized for sigh months in France, he came it ce> tact with soldiers of every rutin who Were fighting the Allied ctsu, During these eight months he «« enabled to obtain such informatks as would have been impossika otherwise, and this experience en been the foundation of the pictm, "Th# Big Drive...
...I could not grow interested In the amatory exploits of a reforming kleptomaniac and his sweet loving pal of a gal thief...
...An evening that revealed many aspects of the wide land on which much of the world's attention is centred...
...The other cornea from across the continent: word that the Collective Theatre of Loa Angeles is putting into rehearsal Emjo Basshe's "Doomsday Circus...
...And a few extras in shorts: Mickey Mouse, "Strange as It Seems," and that ever-enthralling battle between the mongoose and the cobra...
...and even though one occasionally sees the strings being pulled, "The Monster" is full of shudders and shrieks to last for more than an evening...
...MILD, WILD RUSSIA Among the week-ends' unusual events was an illustrated lecture by Burton Holmes and Carveth Wells on Russia as it waa, and as it is...
...Arthur L. Role, who produce) this film, saw service with the TStk Division...
...The Big Drive" OfhcieJ W „ Film at the Cameo "The Big Drive," the first cosv pilation of the surpassed ofnchl Alms of eight nations, is being pet sented currently at the (to* Theater...
...REVIVED HORROR "THE MONSTER...
...Unusual, in that the politics of Communism played scarcely any part in the talk...
...But, of course, it all ends so that one can go home to pleasant dreams...
...In Soviet Russia and in Berlin there are also companies now rehearsing the play for early production...
...The first speaker in the series will be Dr...
...There is a good chorua, with zest and grace, there are effective scenes, all around the Beer Gardens and the Police Commissioner's other haunts in Dresden, Germany...
...while of Russia today there were beautiful scenes of the Caucasian regions, and trips to little known sections, where the Revolution has had little chance to penetrate—as the Caucasian tribe (with splendid armor) that believes it is descended from the Crusaders, and those folk on Ararat who still exhibit splinters from Noah's ark...
...Recent devices are perhaps a bit more electrical, but the trap-doors, underground rooms, walking dead folk and gigantic "controls" of ten seasons ago still send chills along the spine...
...In this, the gentleman chiefly concerned, having dismissed his mistress (to a Frenchman as essential as a dog to a firehouse...
...it jmt falls somehow flat...
...let them come back from Dresden China indifferencies to the rich opportunities of the American scene...
Vol. 15 • February 1933 • No. 7
