The Drama in Central Europe
The Drama in Central Europe I.— PRAGUE 1THEATRICAL fart in in*- Czech capitul is \aited arid most inier-esting, writes J R m in* Manchester Guaidian In Prague, the j week's plays in the National...
...Some recorJ for an O'Neill play...
...His fathe , simplv does not know how to handli an idiot, and his motor, wosc heir :< filled with love for her ill ben child, gropes feebly trying to And ou jus...
...Impressions of "The Sultan of S»|* will M one of the musical pr"*"'*' tiona next wuek...
...of the Neighborhood Playhouse were viae in ¦electing a variety of performance radically different from'lhe tragedy ef Joyce...
...Prague has a eenaor who permitted one trial performance and the play has not been played since...
...It cannot be aaid tl in the piny is a picture of folk life ol a certain aectlon o.' our people aa other mountain playa have been...
...the director...
...There is opportunity here for the routine of obvious fooling, but the prodjeer, M Serov, lifted it right out of the obvious rut by giving it a touch of circus technique...
...The first scene of the second play presents a group of tribesmen, at some far-off early atage of civilisation (its three acts are dim past, bright present, and dimmest future...
...the dancers in this, in their excessive exuberance nr deliberate awkwardness of display—though still posed and carefully portioned— made the best moments of the evening: Lily Lubell, Anni Schmidt, Sadie Snssman, Paula True-man, and the faithful Albert Carroll whom Broadway should have carried off...
...that ia all tha j I can find to say about the play, sym pathetic as I was to see the newes piece of the author of "The Shami Wnmen" and "Sun-Up...
...Staging by Letter Lonergan...
...will Ur presented by the Dugan Producing Company...
...what to do with him...
...Esther Howard, Emma Haig, Alexander Gray, Phyllis Clevelind, Claude Allisber and DoTutny Wilson...
...Jil is now established, and has public aid...
...The dancing, too, was uninspired, almost as though the participants did not like their parts.....save for a contrasting few, the acrobats, and especially the children of the Junior Festival Players...
...In this operetta IP famous comedian, Frank Moiilon...
...Hughei gives such a beautiful performance tha fur a while he seema like a child witl a mind full of muiie rathar than i loatheaom* imbecile...
...TELL ME MORE," a musical comedy by Wm...
...Satiric Dancing "Sooner or Later" and "Legend of the Dance" at the Neighborhood After "Exiles," anything ii likely to ittm a let-down...
...The cast includes | Helen Gahagan, Frank Conroy, Kenneth MacKcnna, Mildred , 1 Florence, Mllano Tilden and Elizabeth Holman...
...Detmar Poppen, Sudworth Frailer, Bertram Peacock and Scott Welch...
...Mme...
...The cast includes Allen Kearns, Winnie Baldwin, Louis Simon, Madeleine Fairbanks, John Boles and Margaret Irving...
...The principals include Lou Ijflt...
...the son of Buck Huckle of thi , siwmills, Is a littfe less than a half wit mentally marred from birth...
...Such modesty seems to cling to the Neighborhood Players, except in moments when tbey wish to satirize the display they avoid...
...In thi last part, the Clavilux was employed for the scenic background, but its coloi designs were no special addition te the section, unless perhaps to indicate thi author's belief that future scenery wil...
...spring from this really effective device which should be.presented more often and which has a value far beyond iti accessory equipment in a play...
...Lawrence Weber, at the Longacre Theatre, Monday night...
...The geometric crystalline puppets of the future, in Part III, were sc ' remote from one's conception of, any imaginable state, or satire of the present state, that their alow movementi drag us away from the vivid and delightful swing of satire that ended tht picture of today...
...Martha Bryan Allen and Ernest Lawford head the cast...
...In the cast are Tessa Kosta, Virginia O'Brien, Rosamond Whiteside, Bernice Mershon, Robinson Newbold...
...The ending in the native production stresses far less the emotional escape from an intellectual dilemma, but what most strikes the English mind is the comparatively ordinary presentation oT the Robots, who represent normal factory workers, their uniform a stiff blue overall...
...I THURSDAY | "THRILLS," a comedy by William Frances Dugan...
...MERCENARY MARY," a musical comedy, will be presented by I...
...the battle-ground of racei (hat it is without a racial type, despite its keen national impulse...
...The play mocks bitterly the god* of all the creeds, but not the idea of God, and ¦'•me of its delirious fantasy suggests the influence of James Joyce...
...L. "The Dunce Boy" Lulu Vollmer't New Play I With Gareth Hughes At Daly's 63rd Street - Gureth Hughes, as Tude the "dunri I boy' of the lumber region of the Nortl I Cniolina mountains, gives an excellen | and capable performance in Lula Volt nier'i new pjay at Daly's, and makes u. wish that we could see more of thii I great actor...
...of a manly aspect ao unliki thr drooling and unkept appearance o most imbeciles, the onlooker eanne forget that after all he la lochia* at ai ! illiot that no prettyfying can make other than loathesome...
...The Nations...
...U. R" in Prague, where it is still played at intervals, shows that our...
...The mental gropings of an Imbecile arc not fit stage material...
...A perf'jfmance of Karel Capek's "R...
...TUESDAY "TAPS," a drama by the German playwright Franz Adam Beyerlein, will open Tuesday night, at the Broadhurst Theatre, presented by the Messrs...
...In the former play one saw a devil haunted tavern: here as a fairy-haunted wood The producer, M Nademlejinsky, had worked mainly .n black-and-white with silvery semitones, and the effect of a world bewitched was gained throughly and wan out labor...
...The lnel««"™J dance numbers will be done by W" 1 Mies and the ballet...
...r«»c"* ed tho apex of his success...
...This is a play of furious tempo in which a I drunken man in a Polish tavern argues the case against religion, rights four rounds with a believer, mixing fisticuffs with word of mouth, and finally falls in a aeries of visions...
...THE FOUR-FLUSHER," a comedy by Caesar Dunn, will he Mack Milliard's initial production, opening Monday night at the Apollo Theatre...
...Miss Morgan was iiuaHle to blend what seemed port reverence* part sentimental miracle, and part burlesque, into anything more tVan a aeries of colored rhythmic movements...
...The cast includes Clara Joel, Minor Watson, C. Henry Gordon, Fred L. Tiden, Leona Hogarth and Beatrice Nichol...
...WEDNESDAY I "THE SAPPHIRE RING,".by Usz'.o Lakatos, adapted from the Hungarian by Isabel Leighton, comes to the Selwyn Theatre, Wednesday night, offered by George Choos...
...It Is not it story of degeneracy resulting from social conditiona as "Desire Under the Elms" is...
...THE NEW PL A YS MONDAY "CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA," by Bernard Shaw, will open the new Guild Theatre on 62nd Street Monday night...
...B. Friedlander and Isabel Lcighton are responsible for the book nnd lyrics, with music by William B. Friedlander...
...W...
...Settings by Rollo Wayne...
...The history of "Trial by Jury" Is j Interesting...
...the three thief ('itch theatres are National (Bo- I hernial) State j. the Municipal, and the Old...
...Desire Under the Elm" celebrated its two hundredth performance Wednesday at the Earl Carroll...
...It was easy to recognize the impress of the Moscow Art Theatre in the exquisite team-work of the vil- 1 lagers anal the delicate delineation of the social flourishes and alarums...
...The cast is headed by Elizabeth Riadon and Ranway Wallace...
...M ISM AXES," a melodrama by Myron C. Fagan, will be presented by the author Monday afternoon, at the Times Square Theatre...
...But, alns...
...Gilbert and Sullivan Jubilee in London ON the eve of two Gilbert and Sullivan revivals- "The ^Mikado" opens tonight at the 44th Street Thrnlie and "Princess Ida" opens at the Shub^ri oo Monday- word conies , from London town that a jubilee wai held at the Mftropuli* celebrating the Advent of the first Gilbert and Sullivan opera, "Trial by Jury," produced at the Royalty Theatre, March 25, 1875, which brought a new influence into the theatre...
...They are intportannt, of course, but they should hi kept in the asylum anl the clinic where they belong...
...In- this piece, and in I lie...
...But in spite.o hir transfigured face, when I hear mi .ii- In the droning of the sawmill in -nil'- of In, feeble attempts to breal tin...
...The screen version » the novel, which comes to the CapiW Theatre Sunday, deals with the Sj» Francisco earthquake and fire and tM subsequent recreation of the gr*« city...
...The Drama in Central Europe I.— PRAGUE - 1THEATRICAL fart in in*- Czech capitul is \aited arid most inier-esting, writes J R m in* Manchester Guaidian In Prague, the j week's plays in the National Theatre may include .Shaw, Shakespeare, a Ciech upera or a new play from Belgium Piague is a city with less than three-quarters of a million inhabitants and it he* fourteen theatres...
...Philip Moeller staged the production, "PRINCESS IDA," a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, little known in Americas will be revived on Monday night by Lawrence J. An-halt, at the Shubert Theatre...
...Lawrence Marston staged the play...
...When W. S. Gilbert was on the staff of Fun he wrote and 1 illustrated the first version of this bur- . le«.que for Tom Hood, and Carl Rosa I offered to set the piece to music with i a view to his wife, Mme...
...But Pragua ia still a country town, and it has been so Ion...
...Everyone knows how the Gilbert and Sullivan operas made social history and j how many people date their conscious experience* from the production of this j or that one of their operas...
...a comedy by Sophie Trcadwell, opens at Ihe 49th Street Theatre, Tuesday night...
...Shurbert with Lionel Barrymore and Irene Fen-wick heading the cast...
...Others include McKay Morris, Ullrich Haupt, Egon Macklyn and Hilton Stiefel...
...Of the present at, on of this extra-nidinary piece one can only speak in tf-rms of highest praise...
...K. Wells and Fred Thompson, librettist, George Gershwin, composer, and B. G. De Sylva and Ira Gershwin, lyricists, will be offered by Al...
...The new bill consists of "The Legend of the Dance," a medieval interlude so says the unblushing program — by Agnes Morgan...
...and Gilbert i re-wrote the piece, and at D'Oyly Carte's iruggestion Sullivan composed j the music...
...But, then, the Czech stage likes the strength of simplicity, be it in Sme tana's jolly rustic operettas or Shakespeare's fairyland, as much as it likes to grapple with "II Furiosn" in the more violent dramaturgy of "expressionism...
...Parepa'Rosa, however, died before things had gone very'far...
...The foursome of mortal lovers were boys and girls touched by the moon, and Oberon wai Wing of a castle whose architect wai pure imagination...
...In Part II, for instance, the entertainment after the day's labors consists in a burleique of a typical Follies (Broadway, not Grand Street variety...
...It is s study of a degenerate In a conventional story that ha.» neither dramatic: value nor a aocial message...
...English version was far too pink at the nether tip...
...men and women are blanketed from neck to ankles...
...Russell Mack heads the cast...
...Shaw is there, j 'Saint Joan" wai not the best of the j productions recently visible in Prague, j due no doubt to the scanty rehearsals that repertory allows Moreover, the leading producer of Prague, Hillcr, has beer] absent through illness, and the work of one of his assistants, Postal, himself an actor of the first quality, was beter seen in a hew piece from Belgium, "The Other Messiah," by M. Henri Soumagne...
...and "Sooner or Later," a dance-satire by Irene Lew isohn...
...The story of the love of Rosie Pjerce, the school teacher boarder at the l Huckles, and Buck's purchase of a aaw-mill that burned lip two daya after he had enclosed a check for 12,000 in a letter, together with the leventh-hour dii-covery tat the latter and Roaie'a lotter breai.ing off her engagement were not mailed .by Tude, Is a feeble one...
...Mr./f*""" will appear in his old role of S»' s" tan...
...Thursday night, at the Comedy Theatre...
...Whatever tliey present, even when they leave ua dissatisfied, the actors and staging forces of the Grand Street theatre are strong and pleas antly suggestive...
...This was helped by scenery and curious masks that re-called yet effectively varied the methodi of recent expressioniatir plays...
...the village gossips decide that ha must be a peculiarly subtle police inspector, and the local dignitaries are persuaded to make all manner of obeisance...
...after the day's toil the men and women join in recreation...
...ugh the wells of hla dwarfed mind in mhi...
...was to be seen in the production of Gogol's "Revisor," known to us as "The Inspector General" This jolly, rattling farce is about a young nobleman who stays on at a village inn because he cannot pay his bills...
...Scenery by John Wenger...
...Fantasy tinged the farce with out destroying its essentially robust quality or giving entrance to the feebly whimsical...
...The lurid . vehemence of the acting and the night- | mare quality of the picture made a I poignant unity of intellectual distress A Midaummer Night's Dream" at the Municipal Theatre showed the lightest and most dexterous fancy...
...No one after seeing this performance could deny the Czech's ability to escape from the tense discussion-theatre which he loves to the other stage of fancy-free...
...The nine Muses enter heaven in hellish garb, red from heed to foot—but, notice, fully cloaked in long red robea from head to foot—the Muses...
...Parepa-Roaa, appearing in the leading part...
...W, M. F. "Proud Flesh" and ' "Sultan of Sulu," At Capitol Theatri "Proud flesh," fruni the pen of La"' rente Rising, has born trnnslated the screen by Kinjr Vidor for SeWj . Goldwyn-Mayor...
...assisted by Gladys Rice sad WJ iTapllol Ensemble...
...wan built hy popular contr but ions This was under Austrian rule...
...The first of these hade fair to give us a picture of heaven that, thrnugef the naivete of a religious drama given at a medieval castle, might gleam with modern reverence and satire, llnfor-tunately...
...Aarons at the Gaiety Theatre Monday night...
...fir.t act of "Sooner or Later," the Neighborhood Playhouse displayed thai Mid Victorian attitude toward costume, that haa ecca-¦ionally helped to mar their pictures...
...This operetta has been more popular since then with amateur societies than on the professional stage, for in music, as in drama, people demand a single piece that occupies the night...
...O NIGHTINGALE...
...Staging by Edward Royce...
...which it needs to include the expensive operatic produr- ; tions in its repertory Its prices are | cheap Its audience is gigantic, punc- I 1 ual and attentive The fare has quaii* and quantity, ! and is essentially international Karrie j has been translated...
...The Theatre Guild has (fathered a cast headed by Lionel Atwill, Helen Hayes, Helen Westley, Albert Bruning and Henry Travers...
...Tude...
...Kleanor Bonrdnian, Pat O'MalW and Harrison Ford lienil tho player...
...The measures to which they step with increasing speed and vehemence are obviously those of a mating dance, leading to re-creation...
...Nevertheless, in detail and in form, "Trial by Jury" was very near perfection...
Vol. 2 • April 1925 • No. 15
