Judge — May 2, 1931 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

JUDGE O GEORGE oJ T is a well-known fact that nothing I is so close to the actor’s heart as role which imposes upon all the ladies in the cast the duty of coveting its portrayer. Give the average a part that announces him to be God's gift to women and he is even happier than a dramatic critic with a night off. In all the American theatre I ve to guess that there are only two ex- ceptions to the rule: Julian Eltinge and Karyl Norman, the Creole Fash- ion Plate. Two of our actors have therefore recently found themselves elaborately pleasured: Mr. Osgood Perkins “The Wiser They Are,” is desired, petted, osculated and seduced against his will by various ladies of the emble, and Mr. Wal ter Woolf who, in “The € t Man,” has his charms battled for by ladies from all parts of Central America. Viewing such exhibits is like a reunion with old times, when Leo Ditrichstein allowed himself annually to be chased lasciviously around the stage by ladies of every ra nationality and color. when Henry Miller permitted himself once a year to beat out the handsome juveniles and capture the leading cutie for his own, and when Henry Wood ruff regularly made off with the in- genue only after bolting the door inst the sexual clamors of her sis- ters, cousins, aunts and maternal and paternal grandmothers. who, in It is unfair to group Mr. Perkins, with Mr. Woolf, for Mr. Perkins is at least an actor, whereas— out of musical shows—Mr. Woolf is 1 good-looking young man un- nted with even the rudi his craft. The play in which the competent Mr. Perkins is appearing is the work of a couple of fellows named Sheridan Gibney. One of these Gibneys has a nice talent for humor and a pleasantly spry point of view, but the other un- fortunately still knows so little about writing that he has made the first ney's attributes go for little. This latter Gibney has not yet caught the trick of cither situation or character however, ents of EEE development and, what is more, he seems to be badiv muddled in diserimi- nating between comedy and farce. As a result, the play called “The Wiser hey Ar is first to reach the stage, is neither meat nor chicken. Some of its lines are fresh ard witty and one situation, that between the young man and the older bachelor, contains some happy juices, but the major portion of the evening defi simultaneously to | e two dramatic clements that do not gibe. The production has been made t the White-Headed Boy, Jed) Harris. Finding him sponsoring so trivial a dish, one can only conclude that, in view of his gl went into a solo conference and delivered the following address to himself: “What Dil do now, Jed, old dear, is to get hold of one of those light, inex- pensive little comedies that won't stand me any loss if it doesn’t go, that may possibly make me a little zuma, and that [ can just toss off without any effort or worry.” But even light, inexpensive little comedies, old dear, can’t be done in that way. To work them into good manuseript shape and to get every ounce of effect out of them is often just as arduous a job as putting on something like “King Lear.” Mr. Harris has been too casual and careless on this o and, as a consequence on is its itself by trying omy season, he ma- sior the pro- due n no wise representative of his customary sharp skill. Anyway, casual and careless or not casual and careless, he shouldn't waste his valu- able time on such negligible stuff. * *# « “Tue Great Mas,” Paul Herv Fox's study of the boudoir ph of buccancering, is doubtless long ere this on its way to Mr. serie. Dreadful rubbish, it to little more th Roman holiday for the hereinbefore mentioned Mr. Woolf's onanistic vanity, vouchsafing to him the succulent opportunity of dressing himself up like the head- waiter in the Greenwich Village “Pi- rate Den,” single-handed putting a 18 ain’s rotis- amounted AIRES NAGIHIAN dozen ferocious soldiers to ignomini ous rout, spurning the passionate em braces of numerous love-lorn females and displaying an expanse of nude bosom for the presumable bewitel: ment of the girls in the orchestra chairs. Thus it may be taken for granted that, though the audience was bored to death, Mr. Woolf had a very good tin Playing the role of an Pat O'Malley but relishing his beauty more in a russet Sicilian make-up, he smeared himself with cnough walnut juice to paint a cyclorama of a Moorish village, waved his pretty shock of hair with the pains of a George M. Cohan flag, loped around the platform with a sinister yet hypothetically irresistible he-ish ness, and periodically delivered him self of lines attesting to his stunning virtuosity in the arts of amour. The bilge in which Mr, Woolf a titudinized concerned, as I hinted, a pirate to whom able female was simply another an chovy on the smérgasbord of Hearing of the invincible fellow’s ap ach, Don Esteban de Monte who looked stra like somethi out of an old De Wolf Hopper comic opera, compelled his fair spouse, Donna Fernanda, to take a leaf from the Stallings-Anderson pl “The Bue nd make herself hideous by way of evading the a Don Juan. jade, after one look another at the unsightly make-up of estley, who was playing her nd, promptly wiped the soot off and fluffed her hair again, on demanding her nubial rights from the M. Woolf. Don Esteban’s niece, one of the sourest young actresses I have ob served in some time, now also got in her oar and made a set for the M. Woolf and the session proceeded to get down to Mr. Paul Hervey Fox's laborious cogitations as to how to forestall the imminent anatomical per formances on the part of the M. (Continued on page 32) Trishinan named y person sex. ? comicbooks.com