Wisecracks and Absurdities Tickle the Public's Fancy
SHIPLEY, JOSEPH T.
On STAGE By Joseph T. Shipley Wisecracks and Absurdities Tickle the Public's Fancy Mary, Mary. By Jean Kerr. Directed by Joseph Anthony. Presented by Roger L. Stevens. At the Helen Hayes...
...Sometimes, of course, the wit completely fails, as when Bob says he'll go to Alaska to escape his income tax troubles and his lawyer responds, "You're too late...
...John Cromwell as the lawyer and Betsy von Furstenberg as the rich young thing Bob thinks he's going to marry when the divorce is final, complete a cast that wear Jean Kerr's witticisms as though they were genuine jewels...
...The wit doesn't spring from the immediate situation...
...But the routine and obvious plot does not for a moment allow us to doubt that Mary and Bob will be together at the end...
...Mary lifts an object from Bob's desk and exclaims unbelievingly: "Dried apricots...
...Rapid-fire succession of such jokes seem to captivate the audience...
...Wanting porch furniture, she inquired, "Where is the perch forniture...
...There was also loud laughter at the remark about a popular author: "He writes like a sick elk...
...Ears...
...When Mary, after long abstinence, tries kissing a movie star, she exclaims, "It's like riding a bicycle...
...When Bob confesses that he still has stirrings of desire for Mary, he calls them "twinges...
...it comes back...
...She had an illegitimate child after she met that man at Gristede's" (Jennifer is not in the play...
...it is a vehicle for excellent performers pouring out wisecracks...
...Another essential in this quest for the quip is its reminiscent quality...
...This level of humor must shy away from sentiment like a skittish horse...
...She's all right...
...And Barry Nelson makes us aware that Bob's love—however inexpressive the author may pretend to want it kept —is somehow deep and real...
...To some minds, this may have ribald undertones, but it has little bearing on the play...
...There is verbal effervescence, wit without wisdom, passes without passion...
...This "quite contrary" lass has been left by her publisher husband, Bob McKellaway, who was beaten down by her direct, unsentimental approach to life...
...Spoonerisms are also mentioned: Mary recalls one of hers, made in the elevator of a department store...
...Sometimes its origin is ailtoo apparent, such as when Bob says he feels like a person about to leave a hospital after a long stay who falls in the lobby and breaks a leg...
...It comes back...
...How's Jennifer...
...Often the immediate laugh is won by absurdity...
...The dog in this story is not even shaggy...
...Many people seek no more from the theater than this kind of very elementary entertainment...
...Mary responds, "Sounds like a gall bladder attack...
...Equally extraneous is Mary's remark, "I was not privy to your " —then interrupting herself to say this is the first time in her life she's used "privy...
...As her best-selling books confirm, Jean Kerr has the knack of tickling the public fancy...
...Here is conversation that was action in The Man Who Came to Dinner...
...This seems so funny to the author that she repeats it as the curtain line of Act I. But there is no reason why a sick elk should be a more inept writer than a sick mason, or an unshorn mandrake...
...But with Barbara Bel Geddes playing Mary, we are sure that the blunt speech and the wisecrack are only shields for a tender heart...
...It is no surprise to find, in the program list of credits, along with automatic electric percolator, attaché cases, portable typewriter, and Miss von Furstenberg's leopard coat, the following acknowledgment: "Encyclopedia Britannica and World Language Dictionary used...
...And, indeed, the best of this humor was done by Alexander Woollcott...
...Next time you see someone going into a telephone booth with an open umbrella, call Jean Kerr...
...There must always be, in such games, a recoil from the heart-throb to the belly-laugh...
...At the Helen Hayes Theater...
...Michael Rennie as the Hollywood star is convincingly suave, despite the fact that we are told his first name, Dirk, is his real last name turned around...
...in fact, it doesn't happen at all, it's merely reported...
...It's joined the Union...
...The second of the season's Mother Goose titles, Jean Kerr's Mary, Mary (Come Blow Your Horn was the first), is a hit...
...Thus there are guffaws in the audience when someone remarks that something is like trying to get into a telephone booth with an open umbrella...
...The irritated Bob asks, "What did you think they looked like...
...The audience is all ears—and cackles...
...The story doesn't matter much...
Vol. 44 • March 1961 • No. 13
