Judge — August 3, 1929 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

f i } | JUD GE r By From a Reviewer’s Note Book ite real heroine in any play is the best-looking girl in the cast. Drama_ pl me of indoor base d out of doors always reminds al, Program—a subtle device employed by theatrical producers to persuade an audience to believe that the play it is about to see is going to be acted. Shakespeare's plays fall into two distinct groups: those written by Shakespeare and those acted by Walter Hampden. The task of the musical comedy composer is a dificult one. He has to write music that will make an audience forget the librettist’s li The task of the librettist is not less difficult. He has to write lines that will make an audience forget the com- poser's music. Both usually fail. And where they do not fail, the producer picks out a homely chorus. The much ridiculed soliloquy is often a perfectly natural thing. The ridiculing of it is 1 As inost plays go, a soliloquy is ipso facto just half as bad as a dialogue. sensical, An amateur actor is one who, through lack of ex- perience, is less skilled in giving bad performances than a professional, I have finally figured out why it is that the char- acter of an orphan is one of the public's dr favorites. An orphan, obviously, 1 This reduces the number of rotte cast by two. matic Ss no parents. rs in the aver- ag An actress is charming on the st that her audience imagines she is ¢ » in the degree arming off it. The bulk of musical comedy reminiscence consists in wistfully remembering homely girls as having been very pretty. Choosing the stage as a profession, Amer women make a much better showing than Amer men for the same reason that Englishmen make a much better showing than American men. Women and Englishmen are actors by nature. Humor—the truth in an intoxicated condition. It is a mistake to call Wilde an artificial d tist. He was a realist of realists, Only his acters, the mouthpieces of his s artificial, rehing tealism, are The persons who speak of “constructive criticism” are the same ones who speak of the late world dis aster as “the war for humanity’. His prejudices are the cocktails with which a critic reanimates his drooping talents. The greater the critic, the more he is criticized. Ten thousand people have found fault with Shaw for one who found fault with Brander Matthews. Let the moralists, when they revile the sex dro tists, not overlook the boldest, the most conspict the most indefati nd the most da lot. I allude, obviously enough, to God. rous of the To the phenomena of life which surround him, the American responds with clock-like precision. in one of two ways, to wit, on the one hand with an Hooray! or, on the other, with a Go-to-hell! The Englishman and American write of women as men kn them; the Frenchmen writes of women as women know them. It is the dodge of a certain type of critic to seck to conceal his own deficiencies—biological, personal, and artistic—by attributing them to the se work he is criticizing, (Continued on page Theatre {Street Scene” (I"laybouse) — The “Held Everything” (Firoadburst)—The aer prize award this year bas some tunes are now being played everywhere, © around and sce the proficient Little Show" (Music Box) — A vue with a fot of humor in it. “Grand Sweet Follies” (Booth) —I haven't seen it since they revised it, but I ope it is better than it was. “*Shidding” (Bayes) me for ita long run. I did my best. “Bird ia Hand” (\ “A Might in Venice” (Shubert)—It ly amusing comedy th enlivened periodically by the nibs. Tom Healy and bis bec is of Digest “Let Us Be Gay" (Little)—A comedy by La Crothers that is better than the average. It is also ably acted. f* (40th Street) — Irene Delroy to look at and some gay tunes to “The New Moon” (Imperial) —Better 7 than the majority of musical comedies Even that come this way. iat © Brothers (48th Stroet)—Very sour. “Hot Chocolates” (Tucson) —The ho runs a cabaret in Sax town, is the impresario, though you may be his play wall int ice Women” (Longacre) — Better than “My Girt Friday”, but that’s not saying anything —EEE | | comicbooks.com