Judge — May 10, 1930 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

JUDGE ING we BLOWS ie rumor that the Theatre Guild board has asked Jed Harris to t over the running of that o¢- ganization is stoutly denied, but after secing what he has done with “Uncle Vanya” and after looking at what the Guild has done with “A Month in the Country,” to say nothing of its more recent production of the intermission less two-hour vacuity called “Hotel Universe,” one is inclined to be that there isn’t some truth in the re- port. That the Guild needs someone like Harris around its premises— maybe even Al Woods or Bill Brady nt do some good—is rapidly be- ent. If none of these gentlemen cares to un- dertake the job, probably an_intelli- nt schoolboy of seventeen or eight- cen could be got hold of to pass judg- ment on manuscripts. Certainly no such lad would vote for anything as childish as the Philip Barry nonsense referred to above. This “Hotel Universe” is one of the most pathetic attempts at profundity unloaded upon a presumably in- ve. The thing is simply sorry ning more and more app: «. To describe it as sopho- moric—the des many of wy colleag sad commentary on the training on tap in the lower classes of ion employed by es—is a pretty ar col- leges and universities. Sophomores are surely not as silly as all that. Barry, the author of various ante- cedent dishes of fluff, has on this oc- casion gone in for a mélange of Ein- steinism, occultism, transpositionisin and witticisin that for sheer juvenility and pseudo-serious flapdoodle hasn't heen equalled in the pages of a cow- college literary ine. What the whole affair is about, only the Lord and the Guild know. Now and again for a brief moment there is a hint of what the playwright is trying to drive at, but soon thereafter his brand of metaphysical chow stumbles over it- self and makes everything a goosey shambles, ‘The past, the present and the life beyond the grave are one,” oracularizes our young friend, and a By GEORGE JEAN NATHAN it crawls around — the breath of the past sweeps always over us,” he proceeds, old gent loudly grunts his last in a wicker arm-chair. A series of wisecracks is followed by which a woman — sle dresses on the ste body sour a scene in Iker oun and then every- suddenly reverts to childhood, talks baby k and squats cutely on the fle A girl comes out, does a dance and fells Poa she for her father, a han tragedian, A banker begins to talk Yiddish, whereupon a couple of char- acters mosey off into the bushes for no good Again the bolic light slowly moves across ‘the stage, and an actor sits down and tn gins to play the piano while the rest of the cha talk suicide... . Has the Theatre Guild gone com- pletely coe ; Certainly fesses to se man mistakes purpose, sym- cters vaguely of I begin to fear so. 2 tion that pro- WY sense in such preten- tious whim-whim should he very carefully. For gross affec and downright absurdity this “Hotel Universe” would have to sea for a mate. Not in twenty-five long years of play reviewing have I looked upon anything like it. 8 * ue Guild, as T have broadly might do well to get in with something about its business. young fellow who, only came in off the road, where he had been jobbing about as agent for a “Apple-sauce,” lly become one of the most proficient producers and directors in the American thea- tre, and not only that, but one of the most expert judges of manuscript values to boot. With his presentation of Chekhov's nele Vanya” he fur- ther puts himself—and the remark will doubtless make him sore—in the very forefront of the art producers, for what we get here is the most intel- ligent and by all odds the most con 16 nted. touch Prof. Harris at once and n This few years press- known as pletely satisfactory production of Russian play that ‘the English-s ing stage has known in the many years I have been criticizing it and making myself obnoxious to most people. From his self-fashioned trans with the expert help of Rose ( te his thorough understandir the Chekhovian script, from his simpliti- cation of stage manauveres to his east ing, and from his elaborations and adroit cuts to his handling of the vein of comedy tl = a poisonous snake crawls hs the tragedy, Harris has done a job that will bring pause to those who have regarded him as a skilful prestidigitator melodrama and While I usually elect to leave superlatives to my friends who the dailies and who may duly retract what they dash off at the cor- ner telegraph otice in their pondered Sunday columns, [ serew up my bra vado with a couple of snifters and say that days of hanging round the showshops have I laid eyes onan important dramatic manuseript more importantly placed upon the local stage. [have seen “The Cherry Orchard,” the greatest of the Chekhov plays, done fairly well; “The Three Sisters” and “The Sea Gull” done sometimes passably and at other times in an r to make old Anton turn over in his six-foot hole; but this is the first time that I've been pleasured by one of the grand old bitter humor- ist's plays done ina way to make any review of it sound like a boozy waltz. Believe m the thea tre in the hands of some such highly skilled fellow as Harris, With the Guild in a state of mental atrophy, with the estimable A. Hopkins devot- ing himself recently to light-weight s, with Belasco busying himself with obstetrical farce, with Winthrop Ames in retirement, with Gilbect Miller often deplorably keeping an eye slanted at the box-office, and with other of our more talented producers chasing their tails and barking hol- (Continued on page 29) tion, ylor. serve never ino my it’s fun to se comicbooks.com