Judge — April 30, 1927 — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

JUDGE DGING ‘he SHOWS ue Messrs. Brooks and I Lister, authors of “Spread gle,” have altogether too much faith in the intelligence of an American popular theater audience. What they have tried to do is to get that audience to accept unemotionally a play in- trinsically so emotional that it makes the late Clara Morris look like a cake of ice. The idea be hind their melodrama is to mak the boobs gag at jingoism and laugh it into the discard. The melodrama itself, however, oper- ates in exactly the opposite dire’ tion, and for a reason so simple that it is a shame to pay a critic money for pointing it out. The means whereby the pl wrights seek to make the boobs conscious of the chicanery of patriotism and the wars it often leads them blindly into are pre- cisely those means whereby boobs from time immemorial have been fired with a desire to change their clothes, shoulder guns, eat beans, acquire cootics and so promote Christian civilization. That the playwrights have their tongues in their cheeks doesn’t make the slightest difference so far as the dolt audience is concerned. For one thing you can’t do with such an audience is to make it feel that a brass band booming out the national anthem is playing it ironically, or that exciting movies showing Our Boys marching off to war are moving sardonically, or that the murdering of women, whatever the motive, is a subject for derisory chuckles. That is exactly what the playwrights have attempted to do, and that is the reason that, by the time their ¢ by Geonpe Jeom Nathan + “Spread Eagle” (Beck)—Sce this issue. “Fog-Bound” (Belmont)—Ditto. “The Barker” (Biltmore)—Moderately Intercst- ing melodrama of carnival life. “Saturday's Children” (Booth)—An amusing and understanding comedy of matrimony among the young. Broadway” (Broadhurst)—The best of the sea- son's comedy-melodra “The New Yorker sical show. The Constant Wife” (Elliott)—An intelligent sex comedy with Ethel Barrymore as the star. (Totten)—High-schoo! “The Second Man” (Guild)—To be reviewed next week. “La Fiesta” (52nd St.)—Ditto. “Her Cardboard Lover” (Expire)—The mis- casting of Jeanne ains this one. “The Crown Prince” (Forrest) —The Hapsburg, tragedy in grease-paint, and dull. “Cherry, Blossoms” (44th St.)—A musical ver- sion of “The Willow Tree.” “The Spider” (46th St.)—A mi: very diverting mystery show. “The Squall” (48th St.)—Nothing in this one. “One Glorious Hour" (Selwyn)—For future re- view. thine-made but “It's a Wow" (Masque)—Same here. “Wall Street" (Hudson)—And here. “Lore Is Like That” (Cort)—And also here. “Wooden Kimono" tery stuff. “Ned MeCobb's Daughter” (Golden)—Fair in spots, but not much. (Fulton)—Stereotyped mys- “Caponsacchi” (Hampden)—Ask me another. “The Devil in the Cheese” (Hopkins)—For the ry young. Oh, Kay! (Imperial)—A lively show with hwin tunes and Gertrude Lawrence. Hit the Deck” (Belasco)—To be lectured on anon, “The Comic” (Mayfair)—Ditto. “The House of Shadows" (Longacre)—Ditto. “Sinner” (Klaw)—A poor one. “Two Girls Wan Sea T “The Ramble “Rio Rite “Le Maire's al one. d” (Little)—Even poorer. Lyceum)—Another dull one. Lyrie)—A funny music show. 1d)—A beautiful one, (Majestie)—A conven- “Yours Truly” (Shubert)—An amusing one, “The Play's the Thing” (Miller)—An agreeable boulevard faree by Molnar. “Chicago” (Music Box)—A valuable contribu- tion to American drama. “The Road to Rome” (Playhouse)—I am one of those who is not impressed. “Mariners” (Plymouth)—Clemence Dane and a heavy evening. Rapid Transit” (Provincetown)—I haven't got around to this one yet. Crime” (Times Square)—An interesting dime- novel. The Ladder” (Waldorf)—Avwful. What Anne Brought Home” (Wallack's)— Same here. The Circus Princess” (Winter Garden)—To be reviewed later. show is half over, their audience, far from being disposed to finger its nose at patriotism and war, is ready again to buy all the Liberty bonds in sight and go out and pot the latest Hun, whoever or what- ever he may be. “Spread Eagle,” in short, is a dud. It may do business for a while with New York audiences, who are generally either nicely cock-eyed when they go to a thea- ter or, if sober, don’t care a rap what a show hout so long as it kills an evening with not too much discomfort, but if ever it gets into the outlying districts the box-office treasurers will, unless I am grievously in error, find much less money to steal in the till than usual. The boob emotion is al- ys a hundred times stronger than the boob rational equipment, and the boob emotion will ruin the playwrights’ intention on this sion. You can’t show the hoob a company of Mexican sol- diers shooting down a woman in cold blood and then set the band to playing martial airs with an recompaniment of flag waving and still expect him to remember that, behind it all, you've got your fingers crossed. Aside from Osgood Perkins and Aline McMahon, the troupe assembled by Producer Harris to merchant the exhibit is forty minutes from “Broadway.” Williams, in the réle of the cor- rupt dollar-a-year man, takes so long to read each of his lines that every time he opens his mouth the dramatic action is seized with a violent cramp. His colleagues, with the exceptions noted, are equally hopeless. wi oce: (Continued on page 26) 17 comicbooks.com