Judge — December 16, 1922 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

George Jean Nathan’s Theater Page Dancing Drama I HE difference between New York | and Chicago is that in Ch all the good plays get i in New York all the bad y notices. The case of Zoe Texas Nightir leads one to believe that Dr. HL. nt had been bump- ing altogether too many seidels of Hun hops when he announe . that Chi A that, when it comes to cultural cente the western metropolis runs a very poor second to Bayonne, N. J. T have re many idiotic reviews in the last twenty five years, but the prize rhubarb pie goes to the gents of the Chicago newspapers for their observations on the play in point. These observations were in the main as intelligent as so many Deerfoot sausages, ‘T contemptuously missed as worse than negligible wh. beyond question as graceful, as witt original and as amiably penetrating a comedy as th theater has given birth to—a comedy that in several ways measures fully up to the best that Europe has sent to us ina number of years. If I were the proprietor of all the newspapers in Chicago, the v first thing that I should do would be to join the Ku Klux, Ila meeting for the same night, get out the sheets, the torches and the black glue, and let nature take its course. a ‘ GHTINGALE,” origins “Greatness,” is the best piece i author has done since her memorable “Papa.” With the exception of the latter, there is noth- ing quite like it in our native dram It is an adroit, half-boozy 5 artistic temperaments adance with bril- liant understanding, with truc, tender- and with a sharp and_palliati While not without its periodic strain for superficial theatrical effect, and while here and there a trifle commonplace, it amounts in the main to as thoroughly fine a piece of semi-grotesque writing as the American stage has exhibited in many ayear. It is a comedy of disillusion, but in the disillusion there is sweetness more than bitterness. It is the disillusion that smiles, and now and again even chuckles. And in these days when New York re- ness, viewers become almost hyster thusiastic any time an actor comes out on the stage with his shoes shined, it is gratifying to note, on this important oc- casion, an attitude toward the intelligent as that of their Chic: leagues was doltish. THs is the kind of play that our theater s for on such occasions as Eugene cill is resting It isof the world worldly ed with- aring its hat at an angle ; it iscom- and authentically civilized. What nut doesn’t matter; if you are in- erested in “plots” you have come to the wrong counter, It is a comedy of atti- an opera singer alumna s cabarets, her second husband— she is about to with a fourth, and their brat of seventeen, a jumping-jack with something of genius gnawing at his soul, The evening deals with their re- actions one to another, and with their combined reactions to the queer lot of persons whom life brings into their circle. It is all a bit tipsy, a bit mad—and yet wonderfully shrewd and uncommonly sane. Itis thework ofathrice talented and thrice experienced Clare Kummer, of a Sacha Guitry crossed with something of Schnitzler, of an American girl born in a God-forsaken dump out in Missouri who has in her something ve 1 very beautiful, and eminently distinguished. at Provincetow it ly to write it has been te of her, I, PLEASES me_peculi thus of La Akins because proved to me that my esti published in a book a couple go after she had confected “Declassée,”” was so very wrong. I believed that I saw in het that time unmistakable signs of the beginning of a surrender to the box office. And what is more, I was right. But w I wasn’t right about was this: that the per- son who could write “Papa” could finally surrender. She began to, true enough, but she started something it wasn’t in her to finish, She had to haul down the white flag wil y, Stick her thumb to her nose, and « sin her. work, I urge you, in the names of Marcus Julius Philippus, Eduard Friedrich von Fran- secky, Daniel de la Tousche La Ravar- diére, Ariobarzanes IT, Castor and Pollux, and Josephus Danicls, to sneak a look at it. II S$ THOSE of you who are tolerably familiar with my writings have from time to time been led to suspect, I don’t y object to watching Miss Adele Astaire dance. It has even been rumored about me that I actually like it. Open Sudermann’s “Johannisfener” next: door on the night that th girl comes on, with Bjémnson’s re” in the next block and D’Annunzio’s 5 cola Sotto I] Moggio” right around the corner, and Hermann, Bjérnsterne and Gabe will h to get along without me as best they a, “These are perhaps evil confessions on the part of one who is regarded by the Wentzville, O., Register as a serious student of the drama and by the Blattberg, Mo., News-Ierald as a profound critic, but what is one’s reputa- tion when truth is at stake? And the truth is that this particular serious stu- dent of the drama and exce ly pro- found critic would rather slide down in his seat and peruse the Astaire than bore him- self to death with all the dramas that the Drama League enthusiastically indorses and not less enthusiastically stays away from. There are many points about this dan- cing ng one that beguile me. Marilynn Miller grins too much to please me. Dorothy Dickson dances with the manner of one who thinks that it is a trifle be- neath her dignity. Ann Pennington is excellent w she is naughty—her hoochie-cooc! rue Art—but of late she ha about it all foe my taste, Pe dances like the Rath Brothers; air while about it is like Woodrow Wilson making a speech, La Petite Ade goes at it like a spirituelle grandma. Martha Lorber is extremely good, but much too dignified. To be dignified in dancing is akin to being sober at a Prohibition meet- ing. Lillian Lorraine dances chiefly with her arms, and Irene Castle is a back num- ber. Leonora Hughes is conscious of her legs, and Florence Walton of her diamonds. Enter then Adele Astaire with the lovely don’t- mn manner, As uncon- scious as a peach short as careless about i as a Unite Senator's neckti girl's, shi State nd with legs like a white colored is the freshest, the most win- (Continued on page 29) comichooks ef}