AMUSEMENTS
AMUSEMENTS The Week On Stage Christmas: Snowed Under By Joseph T. Shipley 'i'HE rush of holiday purchasing means T- . a slackening of theatre-going; the week before Christmas not one new...
...The Cast has but one woman, a part played by Dagney Servades...
...The play Itself sounds a bit archaic in our modem ears and at times It is difficult to find out what It is all about Michael Strange, of the abundant Barrymores, takes the title role with vim and vivacity but a certain lack of sublety...
...Rose Pelswlck will announce the Paramount program over WHN...
...in the second, Lillian Foster does an excellent Job...
...Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, that well-known team holding the stage throughout December, will open with a new edition of follies for the year 1028...
...the A. N. P. A. will tell the Naked Truth...
...It to published to the series of plays brought out by tbe Volksbuehne in Berlin and bat been produced under the auspices of this famous popular theatre m a number of —rHr—• German cities where ft has bad a remarkable success...
...translated by Alexander Berkman, win bagtoen as a boned* rjerforsaanee for the Socialist Party on Sunday evening, Jannary 8th...
...There to excellent scenic effects by Janes Reynolds, while Richard Boleslavsky, the Biiarton gentleman, did the Ik Poland's Ghettoes On The Screen The old Manhattan opera House has been showing all week a series of present day scenes in tbe towns and villages of Jewish Poland...
...The play deals with tbe question of war and the right of the Individual to refuse to commit legalized murder even at the command ot constituted authority...
...Show float," Edna Ferber's novel, refurbished jy Oscar Hammers te in 2nd, with Jerome Kern's music, now graces the stage of tbe, Ziegfeld...
...the lazy Mississippi life (in non-flood days) is cap-' aired in song and chorus and general ebythmic stir...
...From this point of view it touches issues which concern all of us, in view of the heritage left by the Great War...
...On tbe other hand, you have the victim, victorious through the miracle of meekness and the power of a new logic...
...Larger's "Periphery,1' a modem underworld drama, laid In the outskirts of Prague, will be the first offering at tbe Cosmopolitan...
...Other plays of the geek—and some of these, receive more detailed treatment later...
...Just to make sense, the CWc Repertory, headed by Eva Le Galuenne, announces that the premiere performance of its third production of the season, "The First Stone...
...in her first venture into the drama, "It Is To Laugh," at the Eltlnge, gives but a tinge of pathos to the sentimental drama of Jewish life, promoted from the East Side that the parents regret to the glories of West End avenue...
...Donald Thompson will find his pass at the boxoffice...
...and they behave even worse, winning the chief laughter of the evening throughout their presence, and working toward their capital song "And we are following in our father's footsteps...
...Pert deserves her name, being one of the exceptionally graceful who dare to assume a slight awkwardness and get away with it...
...Probably for the first time, a comic opera organization wfll go on "the road" with its New York east unehaaged, see set for three chorus girls...
...stress is bud upon the young sculptor, and it is a while before we recognise that the vital and effective element in tbe play is the movement in the life of tbe older woman...
...The Chinese Parrot" is an adaptation of Earl Derr Riggers' story...
...Bartels, with his "Am I Right, or—am I right...
...a Publix usher will say damn, and there will be a seat for everybody at the Paramount Theatre...
...Relsey Allen will tell a new story: the Colony Theatre will not change its policy...
...Marienne Francke has the less sympathetic and less deveaTpejL: role of the small town girl whose soman' and narrow attitude hamper the expanding sculptor...
...Vic Shapiro wfll stick to O. A.'s policy of facts only for the press...
...For It is the comics and the costumes that stand forth in this widely heralded and successful production...
...On Saturday night, January jfth, in the Roy ale Theatre, New York City...
...Its cryptic historical references somehow does not ring true hi the theatre of today...
...The play, as I have indicated, gives little more than the surface sketch of this character, and Lillian Foster has the most difficult task of converting what Hurlbut has made melodrama into less violent and more real growth...
...the Tom Cushing play, in which Claudette Colbert will appear and which is being done in association with Charles L. Wagner...
...it was most heartily received, and specially in the ensemble numbers to iolorful and pleasing...
...The Chinese Parrlot," Paul Lenl's secend picture to be made in this country for Universal, comes to the Colony Theatre, Saturdaq, December 31st...
...A. D. ing year...
...Fannie Hurst, for instance...
...Winthrop Ames' Gilbert and Bcmvan Opera Company ends Its New York engagement which has extended almost two years, save for a brief tour hurt spring and the summer months of 19TT, On January 0, the company begins Its first transcontinental tour In tbe Walnut street Theatre, Philadelphia, and wfll not be heard in New York again until November, 1028...
...By this time, Mr...
...L'Aiglon, long since a classic, is interesting, but with its long monologues, its obvious asides...
...As the play progresses and tbe tragic struggle unfolds, this lonely jail In a far-away corner of Siberia gradually becomes the center of the world stage, where are being decided the Issues of the salvation of humanity...
...IF WINTER COMES Qustav Blum's new offering at the Bayes is a most interesting study called "Spring Song," by Virginia farmer...
...this week seven teen new plays send out their varied appeal, of some, a few brief notes: In "Behold tbe Bridegroom," at the Oottt George Kelly has turned to more serious fields, presenting, with Judith Anderson doing stellar work, the tragedy of a woman who has spent her life In such a. way that when true love comes to her, she fees) herself no longer ready worthy of the future it should bring...
...Harriet Underbill will praise tbe stage presentations...
...This was not fisappoinUng, although the play has no nore novel note than marital unfaithfulness and triangular designs...
...Hampden will Interrupt the run long enough to appear in four performances of "Hamlet" beginning with the Wednesday matinee of next week (January 4th...
...The prisoner persists in the face of all the efforts of authority and the temptation to assume leadership in a revolution of violence...
...Irene Thirer will not lose her season pass...
...The costumes are by Charles LeMalre 1 the settings by Norman Bel Geddes...
...Of course, the old hard-grained religious customs lend an air of unpleasantness to the scene for the liberalized mind...
...Those who have left these scenes years ago and settled here might well pa y a debt to memory and go over to the Manhattan Opera House and view again the sod and poverty from which they sprang...
...and "Up In the Clouds" two certain hits...
...no press agents win be fired In 1028...
...none of the noise and confusion that seems to be considered necessary to a modern play . Yet concentrated within Its Ave acts of tense dialogue there to real and deeply revolutionary material which needs no mechanical accessories to grip the audience...
...The fact that the young doctor whom her cousin has won by bolder ways loves Winnie and gets her in the end, does not detract from the validity of the study ol he unmarried girl who is, approaching her thirties, who wants a home and family, and who sees maidenhood stretching like a forest path in winter long before her...
...woodcut...
...As things are, the play is somewhat divided, but is carried in continuous Interest by the excellent performance...
...The rabbi, the Sham us, tbe town idiot, the tollers and traders, tbe mothers and sons and daughters in all their ragged simplicity come up to yon for a sad greeting...
...All in all as a moving picture, this presentation at the Manhattan Is a worthwhile experience...
...These are...
...is one of those complete idiots that braxen their way along while everyone is too astounded at their impudence to stop them...
...Dauntless Eva Le Qallienne continues her fight against tbe malignant fates...
...Ere Masque, "Venus" combines the theme jsuaJly associated with its name with an ictnal trip to the planet named after the goddess, Rachel Crothers revealing I more fantastic aspect of her activity...
...In form "Tbe Prisoner" follows the Unas of more conservative drama...
...hi repertoire, 33 full weeks, or over onehalf the entire number of weeks tbe piece has been given in New York...
...There is no hectic shift of scenes...
...Giione and Olflette," and "The Gnomes Workshop," two pantomimes by M. Jagendorf director of "Tbe Children's Playhouse" of New York City...
...Max Relnhardt's repertoire company which has been at the Century Theatre moves on Monday to the smaller Cosmopolitan Theatre on Columbus Circle, where the master producer wfll offer some of his smaller scaled productions,—smaller In size, but not in theatrical quality we may be sure...
...A Tale From India," a masque based on an Indian legend...
...beneath the taunts of her thoughtless sisters, and the well-meaning efforts of her relatives, she grows in rebellion until her home efforts to hold a man seeming fruitless, she goes to New York, invents a husband—then when the family threatens to come on a visit, she kills him...
...On April IB, IMS, be produced "Iolanthe," which never had been a favorite opera in this country...
...Mary Eaton and Oscar Shaw are the musical stars, and they do their usual competent job, carrying along the love and the story, with "Who Did...
...no attempt to carry on Impression of the kaleidoscope ot tbe whole machine age...
...This time she tilts all the mysterious powers embattled behind tbe two standards of superstitution and custom...
...Even the children are somehow aware that their more fortunate kin in America will be looking at them from comfortable seats in a warm theatre...
...the Capitol will stop giving the Paramount publicity...
...Janney's productions are taken for granted as containing a fairly good ratio of tuneful music, a number of excellent voices and a chorus with quality as well as volume...
...Its first production in America in 1882 by the D'Oyly Carte Company of London ran 18 weeks and Its longest subsequent engagements, until tbe Ames' revival, was 4 weeks...
...and "A Midsummer Night's Dream...
...Nonetheless, Winnie wants to have a home of Her own...
...under the Impact of this strange power of the "terrible meek", the apostles of force break down and disintegrate...
...Florence Bradley Moore, the director of the organisation, has taken over the Vagabond Theatre for 1927-28 and work is now in full swing...
...Marlon Keeler to "Silvering", the wife of the Squaw Man, while Hazel Glen is his wife-to-be, after his Indian spouse has shuffled herself off by the pistol route...
...for her amusement upon this little Urim^o find that it contains the one thing her art and her Ufe required, mingles a gay coquetry with an enveloping play of emotion that needs but a little more pliability and warmth to make it of high rank...
...The Puppet Players," of Baltimore, have launched the most ambitious season of their career, for the first time housed in their own home...
...Not that there are no scenes approaching Poland's right here in Golden America...
...Allan Prior, one time operatic star In Italy, favorite of many American light operas, meets all the requirements of his enthusiastic admirers in the role of Jim Carson, former Captain James of the 16th lancers, or some such British regiment...
...Tbe story ends happily through the well-known willingness of Indian squaws to kfll themselves whan their husbands And them in the way around the wigwam...
...the complications are elaborately amusing...
...still the relationship is true and In the play well founded, and—had the emphasis been properly laid—would have been one of the season's profoundest studies...
...This year the Volksbuehne will produce tbe play in Berlin...
...PARADISE ENOW In the avalanche of first night reviewing, one poor news reporter unluckily assigned "Paradise," the effective presentation at tbe 48th street, found nothing to say but that the author had done a better Job than tbe director, and that instead of Lillian Foster, he visualized Helen Hayes in the main role...
...In this, her work is lightened by the humorous handling of the maiden aunt by Minnie Dupree, who makes more fun out of funerals than most of us have known...
...Another drama in serious mood Is the revival of Rostand's "L'Aiglon," with Mtobael Strange in the role ot the second Napoleon...
...And Ethel Wilson, as the singer descending...
...The Jew too te slowly losing his Fundamentalism, and accepting the first few tenets of science and Darwin...
...It would be easy enough to imagine any competent and versatile actress in the role, but why bother...
...Win throp Ames &as established new records for Oflbert and Sullivan in New York...
...The season will comprise six productions: "The Miller and His Men," by Isaac Pocock, a "mellow drama" written in 1818...
...Herman Thimlg wlU play the leading role...
...Tbe play is now in rehearsal and will have an out-of-town opening shortly, coming to Broadway late In January...
...that our own land is Indeed a tenth Heaven in comparison...
...These are extremely colorful and engaging, and prove that intelligent plot well constructed, is not In the least necessary for the success of a musical comedy...
...Ed Olmstead will not go to California...
...The Prisoner", tbe that play of this nation's Provtaoetowu Playhouse program, to by a German author, Entll Bernhard, a writer who has already earned a place in rxintemporary German drama...
...The Five O'clock Oirl" wins through the sum ot its subordinate parts...
...In the' first place, such speculation would flatter the play...
...motion picture salaries will be cut ten per cent...
...a new American play by Walter Ferris, will take place on Friday, January 13th...
...Walter Hampden has reached the 100th performance of Henrik Ibsen's comedy, "An Enemy of tbe People," at Hampden's Theatre...
...Professor Topsy-Turvy and His Brilliant Thoughts...
...The White Eagle," at the Casino, k he only musical comedy until "Lovely jady" later in the week, and the musical rersion of Edna Ferber's "Show Boat.' The White Eagle" is by the man w'hc lid-"The Vagabond King," Russell Janley...
...At the Music Box, a night later than hese, there opened "Paris Bound," by [jbJup Barry, already so well known as a stir keen anticipation...
...But Pert Kelton, Louis John Battels, and the Shaw and Lee combination (Al Shaw, this one), supply the comedy, and they outdo themselves...
...The reason for this quick release of a special production Is due to the fact that a legitimate stage production Is crowding the great movie laugh-getter out...
...The play Is deeply Tolstoyan in feeling and design, it takes place in a Siberian prison and centers about the struggle between the prison warden and one of the prisoners who refused to carry arms in the Great War, and whose example, infecting whole armies, threatens with collapse the entire structure of Csartot militarism toward the end of 1918...
...The Ames company has sung "Iolanthe," Including Us performance...
...However, the Province town Playhouse production will antedate that of the Volksboehne, and New York aifl have practically the premiere of Beruhard'i piece...
...An Enemy of tbe People" will con...
...The first production of this group will be "La Gringo...
...More than usuals, this piece saptures and sustains, not the plot, but the mood ot .the original...
...John B. Oohen, Junior's Secretary (Willie) will not call for a pass...
...this she handles well...
...The Elves and the Shoemaker," by Ethel Sldgwlck...
...It seemed to me, quite on the contrary, that the author had given the producer little more than the outline of a part, and a character all the vigor and vitality of which are due to the direction and the acting...
...This production at the Cosmopolitan gives a new interpretation te the character of the weak princeling, rendering him indeed so strong that history would have been changed, were this version true...
...But it touches even more poignant topics when it raises tbe whole question of the right of tbe individual to decide what he shall or shall not do according to his own conscience, even against the judgment of governments and masses, and tbe further issue of the efficiency of non-resistance in the face of violence and force, even when exercised by revolution...
...Paradise" pictures an older sister who has remained unmarried while younger ones havejgone the good way because the older one cannot give herself to jazzing, petting times...
...But the cursed Jew-baiting and hating land Is so universally scurvied with sorrow and tragedy for the Jew...
...Jack Mclnemey will not stage a tea...
...Shaw and Lee look like a tintype of two generations ago, or a John Held,, jr...
...Ifce Prisoner" *Mk - Gitt« trt Pr«*if*eetoyrn Fo* Soetaflst Party .."The Prisoner", by Emfl Bernbard...
...But one sees even in Poland that the ancient order of orthodoxy is passing...
...the young tortured artist Lewis Leyerett plays seems sharp and anguished hj the' performance...
...The analysis of the shaping that goes on in her is searching and true, as she move* from the love-seeking woman through a period of uncertain questing, when she does not understand I herself, to the fulfillment ot the impulses ] of motherhood...
...At the Thea...
...the week before Christmas not one new play came on...
...by Vera Macbeth Jones...
...In Movies "Helen of Troy," which opened at the Globe Theatre on December 9th, at ad- , vanced prices, will move over to the Paramount on January 7th, where It will play at popular prices...
...This wfll be a New York record for consecutive pieeeiitetimm of an Ibsen play...
...Paradise," at the 48th Street, is a piclirrg of the revolt of the small town girl letermined to make good and show the Family her true worth after all...
...Celebrity" gives a picture of a champion boxer from an unusual and effective angle...
...Instead of this popular production reviewing the past events of 1927, the entire I program will be a prediction for the comA Mustrsl Squaw Man Among the more ambitious of the 11 Christmas week offerings on the New fork stage, Russell Janey's musical version of "The Squaw Man", presented at the Casino as "The White Eagle", bids to outlast many of them...
...ANY OLD TIME At the 44th Street Theatre "The Five O'clock Girl" wends her tuneful way through the hours of the evening, reminding us particularly of the fact that "musical comedy" has that second word...
...SWELL SETTINGS The settings of L'Aiglon at the Cosmopolitan Theatre have a breath-taking beauty that make sitting through the Rostand play with all ha--strange struttings and posturing well Worth while...
...in no way acted up or prepared with any artifice...
...her thin voice, which no heroine would desire, is with her a further summons to hilarity...
...It to in five acts, with only two changes of seta...
...Which is not to say that "The White Eagle" is anything to shout from the housetops about...
...Lent distinguished himself with his first American picture "The Cat and the Canary," adapted from the popular play by that name by John Willard, and regarded as the greatest mystery picture yet made...
...majority of tbe offerings, naturally, are of lighter stuff...
...Few ot them smile...
...All turns out right in the end, however—as in "Restless Women," share Sydney Stone at the Morocco sets ft daughter intriguing against her mother to save her from a new romance—which entangles the younger woman instead, at the Lyceum...
...While the New York playgoer may tend to see something amusing in the sudden recognition of the mother-love that has a moment before seemed sweetheart Jealousy, and indeed the shift comes e bit too swiftly...
...For instance: Fred Hall will commend the Paramount ushers...
...But once gifts and greetings an exchanged, entertainment works Its way toward New Year's Eve...
...On the one hand you have all the authority and force in the hands of the prison warden, determined against all bis better instincts to wring submission to constituted authority out of his victim...
...Six directors, in addition to Hamilton MacFadden, will control the policy of the newly-organised theatrical producing firm of Hamilton MacFadden, Inc...
...It works pnootfaly, what with the playwright and tfls assistants In the shape of Madge Kennedy and a competent group...
...uinn Martin will see a good stage revue...
...f-C "The Prisoner" at the Provtoescewa Playhouse tonight, has already attracted second and third week of the ran by Socialist Party, the Civic Club, the Petlowshlp for Reconciliation, the Oeba Fellowcraft Club, tbe Women's Peace Party, and the Society for Socialist Prtooners and Exiles in Russia...
...tlnue the regular bill at Hempden's Theatre although Mr...
...The essential element of the drama, however, remains the study that O'Neill sought more strikingly In "Different," that Hurlbut had an opportunity to reach toward and, with Lillian Foster's help, almost attained...
...The evening, through these several sources, moves soundly and effectively...
...The balance of the Incidents is unfortunate...
...Leo Bulgakov as the old music-master moves with a deliberate, mellow akfll...
Vol. 5 • December 1927 • No. 2
