Judge — March 23, 1929 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

JUDGE ING we SELON rn AL AL Mins is a lightly pleasant: and M agreeable writer who unfortunately, in’ view of his predilection for the theatre, is a pretty his many attempts at plays one or two little specimens that just man age to get by, but the bulk of them lack that peculiar quality of inner bounce and life that clectrifies the stage. They are like charming dinner-table conver sations without any dinner. The trouble is doubtless to be found in Milne himself, for he doesn’t seem quite to have made up his mind whether he is a short story writer, a novelist, a poct, a writer of wl or a playwright. There are dashes of each in his plays and the dashes every now and then get tangled up in one another's feet and prevent the stage from taking charge of its dramatic self, His latest effort, “Meet the Princ is no exception to the rule. For s minutes in each of its three acts it is a play, that is, something that moves and breathes and kicks up its heels on re platform, But these minutes are preceded wed by material that might be all right in an essay, a short story, a poem or a novel but that scem pathetically out of place behind a row of footlights and retailed by a troupe of « poor pl reg ors. I ily to overwork the verb pop, but here n: Milne doesn't pop. His plays may cone ably have some authentic champagne in their bottles, but he is such an unskilful bartender that when he opens them he is able to produce only the unimpres- sive detonation of a ginger-ale cork. Mr. Milne has also another weakness, and that is seem By re GEORGE JEAN NATHAN wha amounts at times almost to a girlish cuteness In almost every one of his plays there come me rents such a violent degree that it is all even his admirers can do to keep from jumping onto their seats and shouting, “Come on now, baby, take that thumb out of your mouth In “Meet the Prince,” int sample of the business. A man and his wife have had a quarrel. Wishing to make up, the 1 previously presented as a normal male—sidles over to the woran—also when he goes tootsie-wootsic we have an el previously presented as a more or less normal person —takes her hand his, lifts it up and, pretending it is a telephon akes goo-goo into it. The woman then takes the man’s hand and—with a cuteness that would make a little girl of three give any other little girl of three who attempted it a good swift one podex—in turn uses it nthe telephone to make goo-goo to him. All of which may unt for the fact that, on the opening night, at least two dozen of the audi- ence, the moment the curtain fell on the scene, rushed pell-mell over to “The Front Page” for a bit of hard boiled relief Such sweetie-pie stuff may conceivably seem very tender and whimsical to Mr. Milne when he fects it in his studio, but he steadfastly overlo the fact that when a theatre audience listens to it it strikes that audience as pretty sickly hooey. It is impossible in such junctures to accept the actors as actors and the characters simply as characters; what the recalcitrant eye sucks in are an adult man and woman making awful fools of themselves. To see (Continued on page 31) Theatre Digest “Meet the Prince” (Lyceum) —\ © eliday” (yrmouth)—Frothy bumor erally dall comedy by AWA. Milne {an agreeable evening. “Harlem” (Apollo)—Electric picture fhe Front Page’ (Times Sjuare)— Te will be “Dynama’* (eck) —O Neill theological profundity and of bis poorest plays. “Street Scene” (Ps house cous sturty of life in a sade-street. {cThe Broken Chain” (Flot Spittoon bumor and farce of the ‘vereaa Btandiat® | (Morea) — An mical drollery that le uch to be desired Alvin) — The iy wrinkled teow attewpe at Yod “Conga” (Longacre) —Jun on hard “Congai” (Longacre) —Junk. Without La Corneil uJ have been i Earth Between” (Provincetown) )—Machine-made, “This Year of Grace’ (Selwyn)—De- , 1 still fail to fod actors off the screen. uch in it Prof. Roger “Follow Thru’ (46th est and best of the newer shows. “Lite Aeciden and lively I you. “Bima” (Belasco) —Millic but not one cent for dramatic tri “Held Everything’ (eva vey" way below Maxwell Ao Some fetebing tunes and cimble leg-work. “The Houseboat on the Styr” (1 “eta, Dubey” (Coban) —The asl Blanche Ring and Jack Haz > thing. with the Mile, St nite —C Mons. Taylor ng it (Rita)—Com for a few moments. > " ‘A Mest lmmeral Lady” (Cort)—Zero. paren? ringers” (ayn! but with Alice Brady “Show Bo. “The Whispering Gatlery""(191h Street) ser seen y grils mastery laesina of cooven- —?Singeration’ (Sssabel) Reviewed onal cut. in pe id work's “8. $ Gleneaien” (Carrick)—If you “She Get What She Wanted” (Wal. are not already familiar with (Nels )—Dhtto. excellent eatly sea plays, take a look. “Conttiet”™ (Fulton) —Ditto. comicbooks.com