Variety (Jan 1948)

Forly-teeond f^SSSEEfT Annkmrgary UBCaTI^fATR 239 (Continued from page 235) ynpretentiously muslcianly. since" Gershwin'^i enduring miisic for ''Porfiy and Bess." Compared with the costly song-andr ballet plays that followed, "Oklahoma!" was an inexpensive production. It had to toe, for when it was timorously tried otit the Guild's financial stock pile -was as depleted as its dramatic stock; pilej But the Guild's competitors followed the formula rather than the frugality of "Oklahoma!" Thg abruptly munificent Todd expended a fortune on a spacious cantata re-exposing the scandal of old N. Y.'s crQ(>kcd Tweed Ring and entitled "Up in Central Parle." The Guild itself became open-handed in producing the en- ehahting ''Cal'oqsel" when . it commissioned "Oklalioma's" Itodgers and Hammerstein to Americanize Ferenc Molnar's Hungarian "Liliom," with Agnes de Mille again devising the stirring ballets. Billy Rose employed the agile "wit of Ham- aierstein in "Carmen Jones," his gorgeous and popular all- '*lj;egro variation of the opera "Carmen," thriftily and tri- . vimphantly refitting the royalty-less Sevillian music of Bizet to N. Y.'s Harlem, where the Spanish bullfighter became a Negro prizefighter, I Exploring the Psychoanalytic | The psychoanalytic was explored by Kurt Weill and librettist Ira Gershwin in an enormous and enormously suc- cessful musical show by Moss Hart named "Lfidy in the Dark." But for Gertrude Lawrence's unsparing impersona- : tion of the inhibited lady and ,Danny Kaye's uninhibited phffltegrapher it might not have been' so successful. Not un)ik6 tlie more ribald Restoration comedies was George Abbott's tearless staging of John O^Hfara's book, "Pal Joey," : as; it had been made vocal by Rodgers and Hart, and was interpreted by Gene Kelly and Vivienne Segal with un- fliljcbing. candor. Lorenz Hart died in 1943 just as his and Richard Rodgers' ■'A Connecticut Yankee," after—a long way after—Mark Twain's historical satire had been revived. This industriouiS and gifted team had turned out during this period more than half a dozen.characteristic hits, including "Batoes in Arms," •Td Rather Be Right," "I Married,an Angel," "The Boy« Irom. Syracuse" •■(an impudently amusing distortion of "A Comedy of Errors") and "By Jupiter," based on Julian F. Thompson's "The, Warrior's Husband" and justifying the belated but brilliant starship of Bay .fiolger, the dancer who was to score again in the Nancy Ham'jltohwMorgan Lewis revue, "Three to Make Ready," .V Cole Porter, who. like Cohan wrote his own lyrics, com- posed the scores of an even greater number of nationally welcomed music shows. In many of these the leading roles were sung and acted with trumpet power by Ethei- IVIer- man, notably "Red Hot and Blue." "DuBarry Was a Lady" (in which slie shared the robust comicalities with Bert Lahr ), "Panama Hattie" and "Something for the Boys." Other ap- plauded Porter musicals were "Leave It to Me," "Let's Jace It," "Mexican Hayride" and "Seven Lively Arts." The'labor stage, expressing cultural criticism by the In- ternational Ladies' Garment Workers, turned out one of the most durable hits, .of this or any other theatrical period in 'Tins,and Needles," vritlf a cast composed of amateurs . ind^^emi-professionals. ' f Irving Berlin, undebatably,the nation's most popular song- Vfriter, composed and wrote the outstanding soldier show of, the World War II period. His "This Is the Army," cast ■vy-ith enlisted men still under military discipline and played for the. benefit ofthe.Army Emergency Relief Fund, was tsven more enthusiastically received than had been his "Yip, f Ijfip, Yaphank" of World War I. Berlin's return to the thealre in 1946 resulted in his phenomenally Successful "Annie Get Your Gun," in which Ethel Mer- man, as the riflewoman of a Buffalo Bill "Wild West" show, rang yet another bull'seye. The freak hit among musicals 6f; the period ,was ^chieved by Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson when, in 1938, they put together the mossy remains of their ; vandeville past, called it "Hellzapoppin," and ran it for years on Broadway and throflgh6ut the country. The over-all popular hit of 1937 was George S. Kaufman and Moss' Hart's joyous lunacy, "You Cant Take It With ^ . You.* Other lighthearted successes of the year were Clare Boothe's laughable betrayal of the female nation, "The Women"': "Ajnphitryon 38," in which Alfred Lunt and.Lynn Pontanne sparkled in S. N. Behrman's sportively free transla- tion of Jean Giraudoux's droll notion of Plautus' "Am- ■ phitryon; or Jupiter in Disguise"; Rachel Crothers' ''Susan and God," an amusing travesty on Buchmanism that owed its run t6 the energetic acting of Gertrude Lawrence, and "Room Sei'^f-ittp," a George Abbott-directed farce about a war between impecunious stage folk and their unpaid landlord. Of higher and more serious aim were Maxwell Ander- son's "High Tor," not quite so successful an adventure, in metrical prose as had been his "Winter.set." and "The Star- Wagon,'' a prose comedy in which time alternately ran clockwise and counter'^clockwise. This same season saw John Steinbeck's sometimes cruelly, sometimes compassion- ately realistic "Of Mice and Men," and Cliiiord • Odets' ^ "Golden Boy," whose violinist protagonist maimed his gifted hands while debasing them for money in the prize ring. In 1938 Robert E. Sherwood, Maxwell Anderson, S, N. Bebrman, Elmer Rice and Sidney Howard, who died a' year . later, formed the Playwrights' Co., which produced and V' linanced plays written by its members. Their three pro- ductions of that season were Sherwood's "Abe Lincoln in Illltiois," Anderson's Washington Irvingesque "Knickerbocker Holiday'' (with the musical score by Kurt Weill, who joined the Playwrights in 1946, the' year in which Behrman retired , from the organization), and Rice's swiftly discarded "Ameri- can Landscape." This was the year in which Thornton Wilder's scenery- less "Our Town" won critical a.s well a.s- popular approval, and in which Sir Cedric Hardwicke built up a strong Ameri- can following through his suaye, ironical depiction of the proud and^polysyllabic priest in Paul Vincent Carroll's un- even hut absorbing "Shadow and Substance." The season saw another Odets play, "Rocket to the Moon," which was more mellow but less exciting than his previous social' criticisms. Death, the old relia'ble, was the light- hearted theme of Paul Osborn's "On Borrowed Time," in which Dudley Digges was the expiring old gentleman who ' litwilted tlie grim reaper while he found a home for his .. .j/.i?3n, Clare Boothe, pretending in the published pref- ace that she had written "a political allegory on fascism in America," was represented by "Kiss the Boys Good-bye," ■ a'lau'ghabje pasquinade .on Hollywood's highly publicized search for an actress worthy of being photographed as the heroine of "Gone With the Wind." And this was the time when adolescence began to be a bestseller in the show shops with Ian Hay's "Bachelor Born" and Clifford Goldsmith's even more profitable highschool comedy, "What a Life." The discriminating Eddie Dowling produced another Carrol] comedy-drama in 1939, "The White Steed." in which bigotry battled tolerance without a cliance and won only > laughter. But Dowling's remembered oifcring of this sea- son was William Saroyan's "The Time' of Your Life," which ■ immedistely established that young short-story writer's reputation as a playwri^t with a fresh and happy outlook on the native scene and in which the producer, not long graduated from vaudeville and musical comedy, gave a dis- tinguished performance of the leading role. Another out- standing success was Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes," an astringent comedy of interl'amily chicaneries in which Tallulah Bankhcad, as the victorious arch-schemer, scored tier first definite hit in her own country, and Patricia Col- linge sympathetically portrayed the bullied wife who over- drank by stealth. Ethel Waters,' heretofore known onljj as the foremost Negro songstress of character ballads, was the sea.son's sur- prising dicovery when she made Dorothy and Du Bose Heyward's "Mamba's Daughters" much more than melo- drama by her tragic portrayal of a self-sacrificing motlier. The Playwrights brought forth Anderson's "Key Largo," which dealt with the conscience of an American soldier who had survived the Civil war in Spain, and Was the first significant token of the numerous war plays, that -yyere'to follow. A forthright token of the many plays M Warning against American naziism was Clare Boothe's well-received "Margin for Error." . The native comedy of manners was represented by S. N. Behrman's not-too-smooth levity that bore the .bodeful title of "No Time for Comedy," in which Kstharine Cornell made her debut as a comedienne, ably aided by Laurence Olivier; and Philip Barry's "Philadelphia Story," a somewhat emo- tional farce in which Katharine Hepburn found her first stage popularity impersonating a hekbine with a stubborn case of arrested spinsterhood, , Ethel Barrymore again came" into her very own in 1940 by acting with unblandished straightforwardness the genius- mothering schoolmarm who determinedly fostered a boy poet she had-the wit to discover among the grimy coal miners of Wales, in Emlyn Williams' sentimental but strong "fhe Corn Is Green." In a chivalrous effort tp pay h.is debts, her brother, John Barrymore, the first Hamlet' of th^ pre- vious generation (he was to die in 1942 and live again in the glowing pages''of Gene Fowler's "Good Niglit. Sweet Prince"), returned to the stage-after too many years in Hollywood as a caricature of himself in a drooling comedy named "My Dear Children," wherein the actor interpolated gusty asides that were as sad and pitiful to some members of the audience as they were sidesplitting to others. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, the most accomplished and admired stage'couple since' England's Mr. and Mrs. Kendal and America's E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe, tri- umphed on both shores of the- Atlantic in Sherwood's ad- monitory "Tliere Shall Be No Night." James Thurber and Elliott Nugent wrote (the latter appearing in) "The Male Animalv" a pewter comedy plated with silver acting. Regi- nald Denham and Edward Percy's deftly written mystery melodrania, "Ladies in Retirement," suffered none of the dis- abilities of sea change when Gilbert Miller imported it from London for the good acting of Floca RobsOn and others. The farcical fortunes and misfortunes of maiden innocency exposed to the dangers of a great city were en- tertainingly set forth in. "My Sister Eileen," a work work- manly dramatized from Ruth McKenney's magazine sketches by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov. War Vs. Naziism Lillian Hellman's "Watch on the Rhine," which might have been called "It Can Happen Here," was not only IMl-s but the decade's most dramatic propaganda against the in- filtration of naziism. Here Paul Lukas made a memorable figure of the briefly visiting German anti-fascist whose American wife, the mother of three polylingual children,' was forcefully played by Mady Chftistians. Exciting theatre (the hunted Negro, who had accidentally killed his white employer's daughter, exchanging »shota and oaths with his captors when they charged jdowii the aisles to the stage) was the very human melodrama written Paul Green from the Negro Richard Wright's, urgent .social novel, "Native Son," in which Canada Lee took firrn foothold on the American stage. •.■'.' ''-; • ■ ■ "Life With Father-in-Law" might have been a' second title for Isabel Leighton and Bertram Block's "Spring Again," wherein C. Aubrey Smith's seasoned acting was harmoni- ously matched by that of Grace George. Playscriots from England that duplicated their success throughout the U. S. were Noel Coward's fantastical "Blithe Spirit," in which a husband was amusingly haunted by the wraiths of his deceased wives, and Patrick Hamiltori'.s adult and tightly-built melodrama, "Angel Street." Another ribng-Iast- ing .melodrama was Joseph Kes.selring'.'; "Arsenic and Old Lace." Twenty-one lay henchmen of its abruptly wealthy producers, Lindsay and Grouse, profitably hazarded $1,000 apiece against the failure of a murder comedy that wound up with 13 visible corpses taking their bows at the final curtain, ■. • , ThiS' was the year.that started "diaper" comedies. .Rose Franken's "Claudia" was a kindergarten of sex, whose beam- ing girl-bride questioned not only her . own biological processes, but those of the cow, the eat. the hen. even the rooster. Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields' "Junior Miss" was a blurred proscenium view of Sally Benson's piercing magazine studies of preadolesconcc. Its popularity, was more easily recorded than justified. , The only "juvenile" in 1942 was the comparatively escu- lent "Janie,"' whose 16-year-old prodigy suffered comicfally in getting rid of scores of soldiers giving thems6lvte a" party in her home during the brief absence of her parents Thornton Wilder's spell-casting fantasy. "The Skin of Our Teeth," which celebrated man's antlike perseverance in rebuilding a destroyed world from the primitive age; of stone to the poli.shed present of Excelsior. New Jersey, was rebuked by a few ;of the critics for not acknowledging ihe' author's debt to James Joyce's widely unread "Finnegan's Wake," but with Miss Bankhead in the cast, un-Joycein New Yorkers vouchsafed it a long run. The still incom- parable Lunts found and imparted joy in- '"The Pirate," an imperfect but delightfully humorous Behrman adaptation in which Lunt, masquerading, as the deadly buccaneer of Miss F.onla)ine's dream!!, altitudinously crossed the stage to her chamber window on a clothesline. If the war "'"vs did not boom, at least they bombed; detonations were heard beyond the walls of their theatrei. The Playwrights' Maxwell Anderson wrate "The Eve of St. Mark," the transient heroic of an American farmboy who might have lived but for helpfully holding out on Bataan a day longer than, honour compelled. It was an improve- ment on liis "Candle in the Wind'* of the previous year, ' whose short season would have been shorter., but for the popularity of Helen Hayes. Steinbeck's "Ihe- Moon Is Down," in which German oflieers a£ well as those they ' scourged were presented as victims of naziism, fared no better. ■ i. Playgoers seemed to be equally Indifferent to war plays "hard" or "soft,'' and more friendly to the lighter adven- tures of tlie war-di.scomforted at homo. Joseph Fields' "The Doughgirls" rejoiced in the turpitude of lodgingless women to whom any bed was- home in crowded Washington. The" long-to-be-remembered melodrama of the year was Thomas Job's "Uncle Harry," whose melancholy villain : poisoned one sister, fastened the guilt on the other and was regarded as merely a harmless liar by those' to whom he confessed, The year 1943 started the run of "Oldahoma!." On tlie , more serious side was .Tames Gow. and Arnaud d'Usseau's "Tomorrow the World," a wartime warning in which a precociously evil nazi, aged 12, was miraculously reformed in an American home. It was the success of the season's dozen war plays. Moss Hart wrote for the Ai^my Air Forces "Winged Victory," which. was patriotically applauded. The energetic acting of Elisabeth Bergner was the rea- sonable excuse for the long run of Martin Vale's "The Two Mrs. Carrolls," a poison melodrama that wa.s cyanide to the critical. New Yorl< was hospitable for almost two years to Phoebe and Henry Ephron's "Three's a Family," a wartime farce about three pregnant women in crowded quarters which was less; tolerantly received in other cities. Thfe-' farce of this year and several following Was F. Hugh Her- bert's "Kiss and Tell," a juvenile which exploited the imagination of an innocent adolescent who sought to save the reputation of her secretly married sister-in-law by de- claring herself to be an expectant mother. ' But the one hit comparable with the songful "Oklahoma!" • was JolEin van Druten's enduring "The Voice of the Turtle," in which tlvis adroit author made relishably touching as;.. ' well as amusing the prenuptials of a pair of young sinners ' who had. elsewhere previously loved and erred in vain. "there were originality and flavour in the 1944 season. Mary Chase's "Harvey." with its happily boozing hero, with . his invisible but felt and almost seen rabbit,' was a novelty • indeed. It brought legitimate actorhood not only to Frank Fay of vaudeville and the nightclub, but tp Bert Wheeler (very briefly) and to Joe E. Brown following liis long tour , of the Army camps overseas. Not to mention producer . Brock Pemberton's excursions in the star rqle for a couple :. of performances, strictly as a lark. 'Mama' a Warm Chronicle "I Remember Mama" was van Druten's skillful compac- tion of Kathryn Forbes' "Mama's; Bank Account," which warmly chronicled the lives of: a' Norwegian family and . their dependable matriarch in old Sah.'Francisco, This was not only the year of the .mentioned "Anna Lucasta" and the warborn "Jacobowsky and the Colonel" and "A Bell for 'Adano," but of Lillian Hellman's loose and cluttered anti- appeasement preachment "The • Searching 'Wind-" ' A poised and polite satire on the higher inhabitants of what liad once been called the nation's "Hub" was John P. Marquand and George- S. Kaufman's "The Late George Apley," which might have been as perfectly entitled "There'll Always Be a Boston." ^ ' ! " The season's one popular juvenile was Norman Krasna's "Dear Ruth." in which the enfant terrible signed her big sis- ter's name to loveletters. From Ruth Gordon's twinkling typewriter and for her own enactment came "Over 21," a smart little success which encouraged its author to declare herself ready to put by the rabbit's foot for the pen and write an autobiographical comedy.' Height was attained by American playwriting arid play- acting in 194,5 when "The Glass Menagerie;" foUdwing the sensational success of its initial production in' Chicago, went to N. Y. For at least the third time in her career the Laurette Taylor of the youthful "Peg o' My Heart," the mature Mrs. •Midget of '.'Outward. Bound'.' (revived in 1938), and now the burbling mother of a poverty stricken family with her boast- ful and exaggerated 'memories of suitors among the southern ,i aristocracy, was acciaimed a great actress. Howard Richardson. and William Berney's "Dark of the Moon" was a "hillbiUy" witch's brew fantastically based on the folk ballad of Barbara AUeni It combined tenderness, passion, racy humor and gross comedy, atid was justly reckoned a worthwhile contribution to the dramatic liter- ature of the.decade. "The Hasty Heart," mentioned earlier, was a wryly likeable Scotch soldier's .adventure in dying; and deservedly popular. Sherwood's "The Rugged Path" was v that author's first effort following extended, service, to ,the White House and World War II, and despite the reappear- ance in it of .the. cinema's Spencer Tracy, this study of a conseience-sftrlcfcen anti-"jsolationist" country editor was more homily than drama. Arnaud d'Usseau and James Gow wrote with less sincerity than had marked their ''To- morrow the World." a one-sided postwar examination oj the Negro problem called "Deep Are the Hoots," which pros- pered beyond its dramatic merits. Yet their.s was the best of many arguments on a vital subject, . . Lindsay and Crouse's durably successful "State of the Union" played politics without playing favorites. Any party:, any politician, was a ijtruck target for its breezy mirth, for at almost every performance the tireless authors telegraphed interpolations to the three companies serving the comedy. Blmer Rice'.s "Dream Girl." whose heroine, one of the longest roles ever written, beguiles her idle hours in a book-rental shop with trances gay and grave, profitably presented -that playwrights' playwright as neither prescheJr nor propagandist and won lasting favor on Broadway? and on tour. •■ ■ ,■ . tiUnjts' Return ■ The 1946 jieason welcomed the LuntS' return from their long stay overseas with Terence Rattigan's. "Love iii Idlo' ness," newly , named "O Mistress Mine," a comedy more notable lor the wit of its acting than its writing. The loud- est laughter, of the year was for Garson Kanin's "Born Yesterday," wherein an illiterate chorusgirl is so amazingly educated by a. radical newspaperman hired for that purpose that she "ultimately ruins the countless rackets of her ne- farious protector. "Lute Song," Sidney Howard aud Will Irwin's picturesque paraphrasa of China s ancient Pi-Pa-lSi, whose heroine is the classic Oriental model of wifely fidelity, - was a dramatic love song of exquisite tei\deii)CSH and beaUty, < The highly dramatic and deibatabJe 'The Iceman Comeths- proved to be a parabling realism den.sely populated, hlf'' derelict spongers on a waterfront N. Y. salmon.of 1912,- ■ • '.• '