Judge — April 30, 1932 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

THE s & idea, cherished by a variety of benighted souls, that nothing is so close to the heart of a critic as a particularly odoriferous play, since it gives him a wonderful opportunity to ws humorous, is hardly what it is cracked up to be. If there were anything in it, con- sidering the odor of most of the pla shown hereabouts since the middle of March, Mark Twain—when com- pared with the local critics—would promptly find himself dismissed as a lugubrious bum. If a critic is obsessed by an itch to be a comical fellow, it is not, as the aforeme tioned benighted souls imagine, the admitted garbagespiel that succulent meat, but rather the kind of play that makes something of an impression on the neighborhood in- tellectuals and that, he pleases him- self to believe, so far as his own superior mental and analyti cun- ning goes, a cargo of Schmierkiise. The excessively bad play not only doesn't provide material for criti humor; it doesn't provide mate for anything. That is why it is gen- erally the custom of this department —a custom based upon unavoidable necessity—to get out of the busir of saying anything more about such things than the single word tripe. If you still think that a play that smells to heaven is ju with the possibilities of rich jocosity, I ask you to consider, for ey one called “Angels Don’t Kiss one signing himself R. B. which was briefly dumped onto a local stage a few weeks ago and which v just about graveolent a dramatic specimen as the human nose, drunk or sobe an conceive, This splendiferous pail of dr was itself so unintentionally funny that trying to extract further critical fun out of it would be like sneezing at someone who already had a terrible cold. No critic, however plentifully endowed with the comic gift, could hope to be half the master ers him some- Lac key, JUDGE THEATRE ‘s, of the horselauygh that its own prop- erty man was when, called upon dur- ing its second act seriously to imitate an ominous rumble of thunder off- stage, he proceeded to give a drum one terrific wallop, followed it up with another and equally terrific wallop and then, doubtless deeply im- pressed with his orchestral talent, continued the performance, what to the bewilderment and d may of the actors and the audienc with several fancily executed mi ures from “Tod und Verkléirung”. Nor could any critic, even possessed of the comedic resources of a whole troupe of Grocks, Robeys and Durantes, hope to surpass in low festivity such elements in the show itself as the author who bestowed upon himself the leading role in it and who offered himself as an irre- sistible eleganto to whom most women were so much mincemeat, as the scene wherein a dunce of a boy was soberly comm med by the hero to act for him in an important con- ference on a difficult: engineering matter, and as such other episodes wherein the heroine pudderi apprised her spouse that she not felt the same towards him s “the horrors of her wedding night” and wherein, when subsequently he kissed her passionately, she shrank in foul disgust from his embrace and cried out her loathing of “that kind of kiss”. At this point, brief I wish to declare a s and ask a question. It years now that I been going to the theatre and hear- ing heroines shudderingly appris at they have not felt ards them because of me something dreadful that occurred on their bridal night and seeing the heroines shrink back in foul disgust when they are given “that kind of kiss", and this boy wants to know what it's all about. Just what is it that was so awful on their wedding nights and just what 18 George Jean Nathan those kisses that s¢ In an attempt to get the I have during the thirty five years in point made inquiries among no less than three thousand married ladies of my acquaintance and they haven't been of the slightest help to me, as all of them, asked about “that something dreadful” “that kind of kiss”, have simply re- plied that both seemed to them to bi something pretty grand. In my per plexity, I accordingly offer out of my depleted resources two prizes otf $350,000 each for the most satis inswers. is there about horrify them? SOTHER colored show lately turned up in our mic This one was called “Blackberries of 1 and it was just as sour as most of the jet shows that have been displ: hereabouts in the last three ) In that period, indeed, only Leslie’s “Rhapsody in Black’ any merit of any kind. The rest of these fuliginous exhibits, like th coons in the popular song of twent Bs ago, have all looked exact! And “Blackberries of 1932” in turn, looks just the same chorus numbers, the sé cloy dance the same skits and th: same humor are in all of them. It’s time to declare a moratorium. The trouble with these black musi show performers and with th Negroes who manufacture their m: terial for them seems to be that the are able to do one thing fairly wel and that they keep on repeating that one thing endlessly. They have n variety, no imagination and no fle» ibility of talent. In the beginniny in the shows called “Shuffle Alony a’ and “Blackbirds”, novelt ced to keep the ball rolling for : But that novelty has for som: time been worn out and all that re mains is the same old stuff, grow: . dismally stale and very tiresom: As one of the earliest whoopers-up © (Pages 32, please) comicbooks.com