FINE ACTING IN "BURLESQUE"
Fine Acting in "Burlesque" Joseph T. Shipley ON THE STAGE DEFTLY PERFORMED REVIVAL "BURLESQUE." By George Manker Watters and Arthur* Hopkins. Seta by R. R. Paddock. Dances by Billy Holbrook....
...In large measure, he never has...
...These parts of the play, with heir good-natured burlesque of burlesque, are still richly comic...
...Tues'., Wed., Fri., and Sun...
...Alter war years of work for the armed forces, Ruth Draper has returned, to bring us the rare treat of her subtle and searching character presentations.'** Alone, she peoples a world...
...The comic, as a drunkard, cavorts through some genuinely funny antics...
...An evening with Ruth Draper is a many-faceted treat...
...Jean Parker makes bonny a very bonny creature...
...Her monologues range widely...
...At the Belasco Theatre...
...In the burlesque performance, for example, when the ecdysiant (whom the program calls ecdysisist, and you call striptease artist) is at work, her garments are one by one removed and tossed offstage...
...Then Skid, on a drunken slump, loses his job, is too sodden even to open with the burlesque show where his friend takes him back...
...The second, in French, is a wife's farewell to her husband, leaving for England and the Free French forces...
...One woman talks, yet there is the effect of lively conversation...
...Thus, partly for old times' sake, and partly for its present flavor, there ahould be a warm welcome to "Burlesque...
...She is an arch creature on the burlesque stage that closes the story...
...New, on the first bill (it changes Sunday), are two sketches...
...Clifford's secretary, his wife, and his mistress, have lost none of their power...
...and the eagerness of her country neighbors to get the cottage aH fixed up and shiny for them...
...Bert Lahr gos back to the burlesque technique as though he had jicver been out of it...
...Satire may be tender, as in the portrait of an English lady opening a bazaar...
...In widest range of emotiosn and moods, Ruth Draper is an artist of rade distinction...
...Bonny, leading lady in a burlesque company, is overjoyed when her beloved husband and comic star, Skid, gets an offer from Broadway...
...Sunday nights...
...In the big city, success, song, women, and whisky drive thoughts of Bonny skidding from Skid's mind...
...With the slightest of costume changes and no stage accessories beyond a bare table and chairs, she evokes the various personalities with keen understanding and sympathetic capture...
...There ia less slapstick, but more slap, in such lines as Bozo's protest: "If this wife can't allow a guy to make a mistake, how could he ever have got married...
...Jean Parker makes Bonny a most likeable girl...
...but so much attention is paid to his clowning that we lose the heart-break we are supposed to sense in him at the end...
...Her voice, her movements, her bearing, alter with the role...
...Just a score of years ago, "Burlesque" was a laughing hit on Broadway...
...His broad strokes (as when, without touching her, he strokes s broad), his doubling on each crack to make sure everyone gets it, his split-second timing, are in the best burlesque tradition, out of which have come many of our most amusing comics, including Bert Lahr...
...The dirction is, therefore, shrewd...
...First is "The Return," picturing the joy of an English woman as her husband is returning after five years in prison camps...
...She is not realnothing in the evening seems quite real—but the pretense is affectionate...
...Skid, with a few pals, comes drunk into Bonny's New York apartment, where she is .joined by the man who, as soon as the divorce comes through, is to marry her...
...ONE-WOMAN WORLD Ruth Draper in Character Sketches...
...But perhaps d crietooHrpskni perhaps director Hopkins had discovered that without the comic's virtuoso work, authors Watters and Hopkins have very little in the second act...
...At the Empire Theatre...
...J. T. S...
...Bonny tells of her trip to the zoo, where she saw the lions and the elephants, the kangaroos and the dangerous—though she couldn't quite describe these last' animals...
...In the second act, director Hopkins seems too lenient with actor Lehr...
...A telegram brings Bonnv to the rescue...
...There's a lot of honest good nature that goes into her playing, especially in the first and the third acts, when the burlesque company is driving along...
...Here in New York, it is a bit like a wake for.the burlesque show—with old faces and old features, not come to life, but in a bright afterglow...
...She leaves her earnest ranchman, and in a dancing finish at the burlesque premiere' redeems, and promises to stay with, her beloved Skid...
...Miss Draper's work ia a revelation of an artist's powers...
...Excellent acting, and a lively production, however, for the moments of the performance give it the appearance of fresh youth...
...matinees...
...The story is old-time sentimentaiism...
...or broad, as in the luncheon conversation on "Doctors and Diets...
...This is corn...
...The successive pictures of Mr...
...Some of the lines are effecive, in the saitie mood...
...Staged by Mr...
...She turns to an adoring cattle-man millionaire...
...Some of them fall upon a seated member of the chorus, whose grimace and immediate bored resumption of bei pose make a prize miniaure of acting...
...With subtle capture of character, she changes types and tones...
...Presented by Jean Dalrymple...
...But there are some moods in which one likes corn— even corn fritters, with ham...
...Especially in New York, where burlesque shows have for some seasons been barred, "Burlesque" is beginning to look like a period piece, pleasant but a but passe...
...It does not score quite so heavily today...
...Costumes by Grace Houston...
...It also takes advantage of moments for neat by-p)ay...
...and Bert Lahr hams around with such gusto and such good timing of his effects that you —that is, I—feel a little tender about the whole thing...
Vol. 30 • January 1947 • No. 3
