Judge — September 1934 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

THE F THIS Billy Rose thing spre it probably won't be long before Katharine Cornell will be doing her acting to an accompaniment of banged beer seidels and the Theatre Guild will he booking some of its productions at Luchow’s or on the Waldori-Astoria roof garden. The M. Rose, I take it you already know, is the gentleman who lately conceived the idea that what was h the theatre was chiefly screwed-down wrong w the absence of 1 hing of lager, and who pro- wht wines and dancing, to say ne ceeded forthwith to practice what he preached. His practice took the form of leasing two dormant playhous the Gallo and Hammerstein, ripping out the rs, putting in tables, and hiring two zen bartenders as art directors. After four weeks of strenuous reh: als, the bartenders were in’ prime histrionic shape, virtual Coquelins and Salvinis in the arts of cocktail- shaker, beer sf oler, ar the corkscrew, ot and wine c 1 was ready, when it suddenly oc- curred to Dr. Rose that in the excite- ment he had forgotten that the play- houses dd stages id that it was strange but apparently unavoidable cus- tom in such cases to put something or other on them. Why, nobody knows, it people have got into the abit of ng to a theatre not, as one nt properly think, comfortably to t there and quietly enjoy themselves, but to watch a lot of doi that please them. on the stage nd Rose quickly more often than not irritate So Prof together some acts, lodged them on nd—that settled—put iple of final w his doors hhted public. Hall and the Casino de I re called, are ment of wri at least, doing And they, or anyway for they two stages, bartenders through a and thr and deli Mus th dress rehearsals open to an eager The Billy Rose ’aree, a swell busines the Music Hall, deserve to, have the tre touch t has so long been missing from our light amuse- rent playhouses. The European air is 1 in them and no one particularly minds the deficiencies in the stage shows if the beer is cool enough, the wine authentic, the sandwiches each contain a pound of cheese, and t 2 waiters yodel dul to you while you are playing footie with your fair vis-a-vis. Maybe the Mons. serve all the cred Rose does not de- for thus bringing the ck to the soil, ellectuals, on h theatre 1 as certain other Prof. Bannister is converted Swedish church in Sth Street, dubbed the American ¢ Hall, preceded him in the holy ibly campaign, But the Me in question deserves most of inasmuch as he eschewed old churches, car barns and garages and did his business dire: with theatres. The Gallo, which lost the M. Gallo his socks when he tried in the old theatre way, and the Hammerstein, which in turn lost the M. Hammerstein t he tried dit under the 1in theatres oddly full of operate it his socks and s\ », bees Ros audiences, at wand, 1ore oddly—audiences I—r that seeme 1 time. to be having Such a good time, owing to the beer, Lawson and a revival of “The House of Ren ‘ bravos would have filled the ni HE success of the Rose idea is gratifying, as has been hinted, but it yssibi It is a well re anythi Y horn in on some of the same kind of instead of roving upon or even duplicating the originals, usually turn out bogus and inferior copies, ries wi it dangerous 4 ut, when ul New ork, imitators promptly spring up to gnized fact tl 1 theatric succeeds mazuma. These imitators, grieve sober, and so not only e judicious, whether boiled or but rapidly bundle themselves off to the ut there- alms-house. Fe custom, owing ore long ob serve ny other name will hardly smell — ich, odoriferously, is putting it pretty politely. We shall probably, in a imitation Casinos de fore, we shall probably be bunch of Roses who by w word, get a string of 12 Music Halls b nothing more than beer, Cal ee and around fornia wine and bad vaudeville acts and which will drive music hall and water wagon, 1s all deplorably back onto the P ISN'T that Prof. Rose is excessive- ly hot stuff in the creation of the leal wet music hall, Far it. In the department of sufficiently pulehri- tudinous wenches, in the suavity of his waiters, and in other such lofty and im portant is not all that ore serious dramatic critic might matters, But, in any event, he may be summed u as having done fairly we tim) goes on © may expect even. better, + rather, th taken the edi and that the worst of won't: know it, is that the imi hat is, they Ww it unless among their num- tators won't k ber the Zie Charlie, who, scenting the danger, pile in and halls just tw We connec with such enterprises, a great deal abe t is called the European ai f have mer happens to be some incipient feld, or Dillingham, or Jack and will ke their casinos and music as attractive as constantly hear, in I my- ioned it in this delectable essay and duly apologiz little, But it has been in ¢ for so long that it quickly sugg readers in) America while it exists only on the rarest. oc- ns in Europe, wo someth: casic otherwise take a lot of word waste to explain. So we will let it go descriptively for what it in actuality should be. It is present in the Rose Music Hall, if not qui same de to the Paree, vhich is more than one can say in either about Casino de ree in his Casino de such ins degree the tutions as Paris (lo Paris), or original strangely enough, in Folies Bergére, or nine-tenths of the other halls on the Continent. As the Folies Bergére is customar offered as the tastiest exar “European air,” let us briefly analyze it an what this Europe (Page ; attempt to see n comicbooks.com