Judge — March 16, 1929 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

| i err is more dramatic life in the MM. Rapp's it | and Thurman's slice of the black belt called Wii} “Harlem,” on view at the Apollo, than in three- aa quarters of the theatrical goods presently on display | in the local markets. It has the sharp smell of reality Hi it has a pulse that gallops; and it comes as a great ! ' relicf from the currently promiscuous stage fakery A} about Long Island swells, idealistic East Side Jews, wives who insist that their husbands do not tell them of their affairs with other women, and soulful lady blackmailers. It is as easy to find critical fault with nd-tan joint or a German tragedian, but it is just as amusing and just as peculiarly entertaining, and I commend it to your curious attention, i i I We will read, of course, various scholarly reviews Wi of it that will tell us that it is crudely Composed, Wid crudely acted and just a little naive. “It is all of ie that. As an example of lofty dramaturgy it. will Wane surely never suffer the Pulitzer prize, find a place in 4 Prof. Burns Mantle’s annual compendium of dra- i matic art or be lectured on by Dr, Clayton Hamilton i 1] id Madame Irma Kraft. But, with all its | it Hea] ts under the skin of its characters and their lives it and it has all the actuality of an untouched-up photo- We graph. Here you will See a dozen and one vivid Hii hints of niggerdom at its realest, with its lingo, emo- We tions, anatomical socialism, ambitions, dejections and hl} odors. Not niggerdom as it is portrayed by colored Hl gentlemen with coll rees, creased pants, a Hie superior disdain for gin, jazz and hip-rolling and ) other such evidences of Kultur, but the low-down, iH natural, authentic niggerdom up in the One Hundred it | ET: See i Clap Chain” (Ftliott ery dull i ee Bi at I | “A Most Immoral Lady” (Cort) Ky Brady carrying a cheap play it fe nocence’” (Finpire)- “Wings Over Eurepe’* (Alvin) —For i “All the King’s Men’ (F “Little Aceident’* (Ambassador) A Mitchell failing to earry a very fanny and original titth Hil JUDG By GEORGE JEAN NATHAN to Vey and Thirties, where no one has ever heard of colored lite movements save those of Josephine Baker. Th ire no less than half a dozen characters in the y that step out of life with both feet: the young chippy as miscellancously inclined as a member of the family Mustelida, the sleck sweetback of the hborhood, the black cop, the loafing young son assertive pater West Indian and ends of coondom in all Jing réle is handled girl named Washi ive of that Freddy Washington © such a remarkable per without previous experience, in Jim ‘Tully's And there are other interesting dis some of our colored fellow artists who go by the names of Lew Payton, Richard Landers, Edna Wise Barr, Hillis Walters, Billy Andrews, Ernest R Whitman and Nat Cash. Some of the dancing put on exhibition in the rent-party scenes, incidentally, may be described very insufficiently as hot. of the household, the familias, the suspiciously monkey-chaser, the odds their pathetic humor, ‘1 with perfect conviction by : to be a reli who, several years formance, “Black B closures 1 nt but regarded said “Deeasere Bounn,” the new Shubert revue at the Majestic, contains much that goes to pass a rompish evening Phil Baker is on deck with some new and highly droll wheezes: there isa skit about a Pullman washroom that brings its curtain down on a reverberating laugh; a new dancing girl named Rosita Moreno is more attractive than any of her species I have focused an eye upon in some time; her (Continued on page 31) Theatre Digest “Dynamo” of O'Neil eff. “Holds “Thi Generally oby with the Mile. La Mima” (Belasco) ery ated a stuped play “The Marriage Bed" (Boot stuf made into a coe Jerker, “Caprice” (Cuil) eve comely of aro Some tasty seen Ably acted Vie “The Pertect Hopkins) more mystery stuff, but better than t average. “Street Scene” O'Neill's (Play bouse! fi n of maritime one-acters “$. $. Glencairn” (( n- Tt has é The comicbooks.com