The Billboard 1924-03-22: Vol 36 Iss 12 (1924-03-22)

he The Bi liboard MARCH 22, 1924 | |THE NEW PLAYS ON BROADWAY SHUBERT RIVIERA THEATER, NEW YORK 1B Beginning Monday Evening, March 10, 1924 : t JULES HURTIG bie iy Arrangement With Mary H. Kirk Te patrick Presents the Rural Southern Comedy Drama “ROSEANNE” +} } A Play With Spirituals : By Nan Bagby Stephens tl — With — iy CHARLES S. GILPIN . CAST OF CHARACTERS ; Roseanne ........--ee eee ee eee Rose McClendon : 4 Son, a Blind Singer........eececess Lloyd Gibbs We ig DE Nec ic asda sae nbscdewanrawet Evelyn Ellis ; iT Rodney ....cccccccccsesccces C. Edward Brown 4 Diceso Brown ....cccccccseces Charles S. Gilpin hy Mie Tempy Bnew. .cccccsccccsesses Lillian Brown } Bis Lindy Gray..........-. Margaret H. Brown ‘ | Winnie Caldwell, the Organist...Jeanne Roberts ; | MRS caw csevecveeseconvcvess Louis Schooler | Dacas Snow ..... serhisciens shel Arthur Gaines : i SN. TEN. o.dscascccceve exoese Minnie Johnson he SED, onc cesn nbs enns Marian Laventore Polly Satterwhite ..........4 Armintine Latimer Vashti Gatewood........ one6aw's Bessie Whitman Andy Johnson............-...Walter Hilliard Zack Toomer..... nae6en vous Chas H. Downz j Morningglory Tri ab le ceeececoves Marion Taylor Uncle Dick Landrum........... John W. Turner \ DE dh ccvéébuevedotweds .....Joseph Loomis } The action of the play takes place in a small | town in Georgia. ACT I—Roseanne’s Cabin—late afternoon. i Act IIl—Scene 1—Basement Room in the j Colored Section of Atlanta. Scene 2—Mt. Zion Church ; ACT I!I—Roseanne’s Cabin—early morning. Play Staged by Robert Peter Davis “Roseanne” is the story of a perfidious pastor responsible for the seduc' tion and ruin of the sister of his most ! ardent admirer in the Ladies’ Aid Society of a small-town colored church in the South. The piece originally presented with a white cast working uncer makeup was not a success. This time it is being done entirely by Negroes, with Charles §S. Gilpin, of “Emperor Jones” fame, featured in the heavy part. While Mr. Gilpin is much superior to the originator of the part, he is not the Gilpin of ; Drama Club dinner fame. There was a note of disappointment on the part of members of the audience as they filed out of the house opening night. To hazard a guess at the rea: 6on, it might be said that the piece does not contain the opportunities needed to bring out , the tremendous power of Mr. Gilpin. However, in the last act we get a flash of the Gilpin that the public learned to love, In the title role is Rose McClendon, who succeeded Chrystal Heirne. She is an actress who at timesar ghts, but her work ses to subli ig uneven She has not the melodious voice of Miss He nor is her technique as finished, but s! mpensat for these characteristics hat air of naturalness with e part. the erring sister, ch much must be period of time is Sis Tempy a i¢ characters they ef ther in comedy The se point of the piece is the second act, where a try 1 small-town colored church is de] t I Pan-Am¢ Vaud . is i The bass voice of John W. Turner easily dominates the vocalism, But while the singing makes for a of encores, it will not make the way hit, if the ons audience are any barometer. Broadway loes not understand whut it is w of the Broadwayites f ti services, number a Broadof the first night show react simply about. Too have any knowledge and if the Southerners know don't take to it there's little pe, and they can not be expected to rave over Negro dramatie art. Frankly, we fear that all ¢ he revival who do unless ‘‘Roseanne’’ is taken on the road, where peope know more about old-time relig.on, its days will be few. Yet we hope we are wrong. The piece has entertainment value and the cast demonstrates that there is gq wealth of potential talent among colored people. For that reason a chance downtown would only be fair, since the policy of the upper Broadway house, is one-week stands The agitation con cerning another production, ‘‘All God's Chillun Got Wings’, is in a measure responsible for a certain antagonistic atmosphere that operated as a handicap. This is unfortunate, since there is nothing offensive to anyone in ‘*Roseanne”’ a simple story, told with remarkable fidelity. The whole thing resolves itself into a question as to whether or not Charles S. Gilpin is big enough to drag a whole colored company into favor with the general public. ‘‘Roseanne”’ is apparently not a big enough vehicle, or the grade is yet too great. JAMES A, JACKSON. GAIETY THEATER, NEW YORK Beginning Tuesday Evening, March 11, 1924 “WE MODERNS” A Comedy in Three Acts By Israel Zangwill, Author of Melting Pot", “Merely Mary Ann”, etc. (Direction George C. Tyler) “The CAST OF CHARACTERS Robert Sundale, K. C., a Paterfamilias of eye Cee ee Te ee -.. O. P. Heggie Katherine Sundale, His Wife....Isabel Irving a younger and an older generation makes a natural dramatic clash and has always been a fertile source for the playwright to exploit. It was used effectively by Knoblock and Bennett in “Milestones”; it is used by Zangwill not quite so effectively as the plot of “We Moderns”. Mr. Zangw!l has written an unbellevable Play, a comedy which is always artificial, be Cause he has chosen extreme cases for the moving parts of his plot. An English barr ster and his @ife, good, solid, conservative representatives of their'class, are the parents of a boy and girl, both much bitten by the bug of Moder'sm. They have quaffed deeply, if ignorantly, of psychoanalysis; they adore free verse and futuristic painting, they are determined to live their own lives. In other words, the unconventional is pitted against the conventional, The parents rebel against the children induig'ng in these eccentric‘tes and try to assert their authorty. The boy, a p:inter, reso ves to marry the discarded flame of an art critic, against his father’s wishes; the girl rebels against marrying the steady fellow her par-nts wish for her husband. Thruout the play the clash keeps up, interlarded wth pro and con arguments for the cause of Modernism, and io 4 FE SEEAIEESIES AE: 4=a =A 4 <a geass 4 bs aca sab hs ab aE: asa a cabs ab aaa ab a= haha PLAY. Abie's Trich Pose ‘intact *Antony and Cleopatra. ...-.+--Jane Cowl.. Reggar on Horseback......... LONG RUN DRAMATIC PLAY RECORDS Number of consecutive performances up to and including Saturday, IN NEW YORK Mar. 15. 3 OPENING NO. OF } STAR. THEATER. ATE PERS. aavinsae Repnhlic........ May , RR inn bieapccetacrstacBOes: Mies ees 32 3) 5 g Pas (SON HMI HHI 2 ..-Feb, Bo enene 3s . hroadhurst..... Cyrano de Bergerac...........Wazter Hampden. ..-National.......... Dec, 17......105 = RES cahes SE fcc cc ccs l TOVMONMecccs FOU. Becccce 43 Hs Fata MOPBana. . 6 occ ec ce ce a neces Se : . eere ae OT ee 4 For All of Us..........+¢.+.William Hodge.....Am'assador.......Oct. :: na Goose Hangs High. The. «00 00 mmm nw ees OOS OCS oo OO .S Hell-Bent Fer Heaven.........——— : \Frazeé..+--0+-. Bt 3 oe eee cccccccces Olga Petrova. “sesees Erolic. ecvcvece uy In the Next Room............———— «.«..ss Vanderbilt... og La Vierge Folle..(Spec. Mat. ) Mme. Simone. Ga CCF. cc ccccecce og 0s Lady Killer. wecccpecccce a aecece ae ees j be laugh, Clown, Laugh..........Lionel Barrymore... Belasco.........+. N ; bq Macbeth...... bebsedescusoc Jas. K. Hackett... — een St...Mar, 15...... & FI or te ee EE PR ee x Merry Wives of Gotham...... ase ees Miller’s....Jin. 16 72 bed | Miracle, The......6.+.eeeeeee0 ———— ..-Century........ oJan. 15..... . 73 : x) *Mister Pitt. ‘i ecoocese Walter Huston. .-. Th rty-Ninth St. ‘Jan. 22...... 65 f M. Maurice ae Feraudy........(Rep.). bin igthnd > tie 6 Rib sneennassoo tem 10 S Moon Flcwer, The.......e..+. Elsie Fe ae eee eee. Ul | ee 24 sg) Nervous Wreck, The........e0we eeeseHarris. ee Ok; Diccceaden x a ee Tee Lionel Atwill......-For tyNinth ‘St... Mar. rrr, Sz Outward Bound........ccceses ES NRL gdcne io aawns 82 fe “J Pieteers, “Sis ie vedicennscus’ Ee ae ees 17 & ; Sere ee ee, Oo eS ee ee 561 52 > Dc. scchodiseeesureend coscsccns Pueeecene Bt...0em.: B1...4.. 53 > Res oe errr tr re b00ccncce MGC: ckc0seseds DOC 2B..660. 8 > 3 Rerenth Wesves....sccoecesess ln eee Booth...... ein cere, Meeecsee 6°3 Ka 33 Shame Woman, The........... sduidisgsndéssbhnngenks, Miiesnat 7 & 3 Show-Off, The........ “ee ‘ -Playhouse. Se Se ee a6h(Ug 3 Song and Dance Man. ..George M ‘Cohan. ..1 LE SS ge: ee so )6 6S bs wing Cleaning......-sscccsese — eee ee 51 BB f Sunup...... sedndskeesusbonee a ek Pee 305 Be f Swan sotnen nee OEtsxasne coscecoseOet. 2.. 172 vy ipa] Sweet pinmaehat s:, oe ee: ae 3] Tarnish. ....cccccccccccccccces mmm ccccseee . Belmont. stucd Oe ee 3] *Tyrants F cece cece lll te a ccccee ..-Cherry Lane. ne cneen ie. re 4 3} Vilna Troupe, WG 288 cat oui wih eee Thomashefsky’s...Jan. 29...... 49 x4] We: Miiane. soe MO Sn siti tas tO OORT E ve OP ake Welded..... PSrerere, -Ami..... Thirty-Ninth St...Mar. 17...... -White Cargo.....e.+Daly's... . Bicadsdeee Wonderful Visit, The...cccoce coorescesenne Hill........Feb. Waeesee BS *Closed March 15. IN _— Abie’s Trish Rose....esseseees or oo penpemept BB. 2c0ccked Rest People, The.....ccccsst oRBRcccccsssest®, Biccccckat Give and Take..... .-ee Mann and §S Sdnes...La BMGs cesconce *"Jan. BD. cscoe’ te Great Lady Dedlock, "The. .... Marg:ret Anglin....' ackstone........Mar. 9...... 9 % Nervous Wreck, The..........Taylor Holmes..... eee Lee, 28...cc.l ' Patches. ..c0.+0 $60es css m ccc ence PU sFRONGG. vcsvesss a ee ‘ aq PERSONS . 656550 s0esendenes eee OC ccrccvccss ecots BB..c0s . 36 bq bat Red Light Annie. danas cen a eer eS EPMO csccccece Reh WBrcvics + 5d x Sancho Rs seb wid tndvakdcn Ot's Skinner........ PW. scented _ SS Sere 9 ; rs menos svoewons esgoceses “=. cceceseed Cohan’s Grand....’ar. 1...... 19 es ir Harry Lauder. s+ cccesceesss Me, a6'suees Creat Northern...Mar. 9...... §{ an IN BOSTON 2g *Dancers, The......secceseeee. Richard Bennett... Wilbur........... Mar. 8...%.. 16 : 3 In Love With Love.........-..Fontanne-Morgan. :).Plymouth......... Mar. | Soe ° 3g] Merton of the Movies.........G'enn Tunter...... VIOUS. scccede ééccmeet, Wacccce 2 , 3g) Stella Dallas...........s+e.+5. Mrs, Lesiie Carter. .S-lwyn........... Feb. 18...... 3 Fs 3g) You and I......cccccoveces H. B. Warner......Plymouth....----»Mar. 3...... 16 : ag *Closed March 15. bd 3 of (Bs BERT IRL IBIS TST oe set ee) rsdibzabsabzehsdhzd beMhzths dic db: Mba ah FUP UGTA bab 4b ib ah Richard, His Son ..........Kenneth Mackenna Mary, His Daughter ....ccccsece Helen Hayes Beamish, His Butler ..... ....-Galwey Herbert His Oook ..Olin Field E., His Prospective Son-in$05 st eccaseseesweaned Harris Gilmore Sir William W'myle, Bart., M. R. C. &., His Family Physician .St. Clair Bayflela His Physician's Daughter. .Gilda Leary reodosia Moskovski, John Ashlar, C Law ete., Dorothy, Oscar Pleat, His Antithesis ...... James Dale Joanna Herzberg, His W'fe’s Antithesis.. ot Dd st6nesernscped«neehahbadsed Mary Shaw Act I.—Mrs. Sundae’ s Quiet London Square day in the Season. Act II.—Richard Sundale’s Studio in Chelsea, the Afternoon Following Act IIIl.—Mrs, Sundale’s Drawing Room the Same Night. Drawing Room in a After Dinner on a Tues The difference in viewpoint between the end the younger generation is apparently headed for the haven of conservatism, thru mother-love. Mr. Zangwill what is really c'ash between never sucgests anything of the leavening agent in the generations Each generation ts fearful that the younger one is chasing the universe to the dogs; the ph'losopher consoles himeelf with the thorvght that it must work out well, vince the rad'cal'sem of one generation Is inevitably the consertatism of the next. No suggestion of this is discernible in ‘*We Moderns’’. Inetead, the tireless argument for and aca'net the modern idea, One wishes that some cheracter would walk on the atage, tell the others to “‘shnt up’, thit for all the modern veneer they are serapping over a very old subject and making a whole lot of what is nothing at all, It ts that, I think, which makes Moderns” seem 60 artificial. “We And the author is driven to filling the mouths of his characters with smart dialkg, whch fails to mak truly smart, This would be a fob for an Oscar Wilde or a Bernard Shaw, and Ixra: he Yangwill is neither. Most of the dialog in “We Moderns” is too ob jously intended to by brilliant to be entirely that. The play suffers, too, from miscasting. oO IP. Heggie plays the barrister, who is su posed to be a rather lovable, if crusty, o'd gentlema, as tho he were one of the character old men he plays so well We have the prop chuckle, the ‘‘dead pan", the shifted emphasis which go with such playing, but they are out o place in this par.icular role. Mary Shaw, too who is cast as a hard-boiled journalist, | out of place. Miss Shaw is a very feminins \ woman, there is a tenderness in her voice and a mildness in her playing that does not «yi: the role of a semi-masculine, pipe-smoking hard-headed reporter. It is not her fault at ali that the character is out of key. One as well expect Walter Hampden to play Stone's part in “Stepping Stenes’’ as 8 Mary Shaw do justice to such a type. 8 not in her line. Quite the best feature of “We Moderns” is the playing of Helen Hayes, who is thoroly delightful as the modern girl. She is whimsical, ‘¢ serious, girlish, gay and sorry by turns and by and thru them all bu ms Th a character that is more veracious than the lines indicate and is, besides, lovable thruout. It is firstrate playing and makes one wish that Miss Hayes might be allotted a part some day that would make worthy use of her talents. Kenneth Mackenna is the boy and he does mighty well by the part. He is convincing at all times and handles the role with really artistic discretion Is bal Irving is the mother and plays her excellently; Gilda Lears, in a quite impossible part, gets what is worth whle out os it and lo ks handsome to boot; James Dale does well as a cadd'sh art critic, and Harris Gilmore walked away with the part of young man, untouched by the moderns, In easy = style. Smaller parts were well don by St Mair Bayfield, Galwey Herbert and ; Olin Field, Jesides the general artificialty of the story, *‘We Moderns” has to put up with the han of supposing at least a passing acquaintance ship, on the part of its audiences, with advanced ideas in art and science. Watching the audience on the night 1 the play, it was easy to detect that a yawning void was in } the skulls of many of them when it came to the fine points of modern psychology, biology, Iterature and art. This sort of combination : does not hook up well for popular'ty I be surprised indeed if “‘We Moderns’ is a success, An unreal comedy of modern life. GORDON WHYTE. licap saw EQUITY-4*th STREET THEATER, NEW YORK CITY Commencing Saturday Frening, March 15, 1924 EQUITY PLAYERS present JAMES K, HACKETT —in— Shakes; eare’s “MACBETH” CAST O*¢ CHARACTERS BROOD .o6cicntoduscdueasaues James K. Hackett Macduff Moffat Johnston Duncan setagy ETT 2 Banquo EO PP Douglass D mbrille err TTT TTT Ty lawrence loss Lennox t mer -.» Charles W arb u en 1 Messenger Armor Bearer Murderer 2a Messenger ok toh Donaldbain ...... Seward Apparition Fleance 2 ad : oT Apparit'on 5G AprOetlen: ccccsscessvssece kek I, dy Macbeth Gentlewoman .. Witch 2d Witch Couriers, | ere Robert Lawler * “Russe Il Morrisor .Howard Cian ee eee Singer eddy Jones War Breen Var Ile and “n . eee Helen Ladies in “Wa ting, Soldiers Attendants, ete. The announced aim of the Players has been to form an Equity “Actors’ Theater”; that is, a theater where the actor will have the opportunity of doing the best which lies in him and where plays will be cast with actors who will make the most of their parts. In “Macbeth” they come nearer realizing this ideal than in any other production they have made. I have never seen a Shakespearean play in which there was such uniformly good acting. Unfortunately most Shakespearean companies are composed of a star entirely surrounded by Inferior players, I sometimes suspect that thie is done purposely on the principle that by cen trast the star will appear to great advaniage