Judge — March 1937 — page 33: what you’re looking at

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

THE THEATRE (Continued from page 16) drama or not. I'll thus take, and glad. ly, the worst drama that Anderson writes, if only he writes it beautifully, which he often does, and give you in exchange all the sound dramatic crafts- manship of the prosy hackmasters. We come to other considerations. Walter Huston’s excursion into Othello was not altogether fortunate for him. So deeply ingrained and popular is the idea that, unless an actor plays the Moor like Primo Carnera full of gin and trying to ass himself off as Louis Brandeis, he isn’t Othello that poor Huston, who brought some preliminary interpretative intelligence to the job, came in for a deal of condemnation. He was, truth to tell, far from being a satisfactory Othel- lo, but he was hardly the complete fiasco that some sought to make him out. Just how any actor could be a satisfactory Othello against an Iago who, like Mr. Brian Aherne, was allowed by the direc- tor to comport himself throughout the evening like a cross between Mercutio and a Venetian Balieff, I for one do not know. Clare Boothe’s The Women is a clini- cal plumbing into the minds and emo- tions of a coterie of Park Avenue drag- gletails and when it is finished it leaves them with less than their chemises. Much of it is entertaining because of the author's unabashed honesty in set- ting forth the unpleasant facts, and all of it is a great improvement over her in- felicitous antecedent exhibit, Abide With Me, which mistook indignation for honesty. This time there is no in- dignation, except perhaps on the part of those male sophomores in the audience who haven't got around much and who believe the girls can’t be like that. The dud, Promise, was by Henry Bernstein and I don’t have to tell you what that means. If Bernstein wants to show, for example, that A loves B he sedulously avoids even a faintly direct statement of the fact and writes two hours of Paris-Lyons-Mediterrane time tables, French Geodetic Survey statistics, Chamber of Deputies records and roll calls of the Legion of Honor, periodi- cally interrupted by more or less boot- less drawing-room telephone messages to the butler below stairs, before he per- mits himself to tell it to his audience. This is what is known, I believe, as un- commonly expert dramatic craftsman- ship. You can have it! Henry's place, so far as I am concerned, is in the grave next to Sardou’s. Beatrice Lillie and Bert Lahr are in the new Winter Garden revue, The Show Is On, so what more do you want? The Lillie girl alone is worth what they charge you and, with the Lahr boy add. ed, you are completely justified in being gypped by the ticket speculators. Nor are these twain, exceedingly amusing as they are, the only prize packages in the show. It is all good stuff, the best the Winter Garden has had in some time, and I suggest that you listen to a little constructive criticism and promptly gal- lop around and pleasure yourselves. “Hey, Herman—who do you want should carry on as leader?” Fome end smortness and incomporoble flovor Benedictine has every- thing! Since 1510 it hes been the “world’s classic ofter-dinner liqueur. .""Lo Grande Liqueur Francoise PROOF 86° Julius Wile Sons & Co., Inc New York CURIOSITY GETTER Sure it blows away! That's one of the advantages of sky-writing. One person asks another, and pretty soon the whole town's talk- ing—about your product. But let us tell you all about sky adver- tising, of which sky-writing is just a part. Write or call. S. S. PIKE COMPANY, INC. Sty Advertising 50 East 42 Street New York, N. Y. Fell Commission Paid te Advertising Agencies comicbooks.com