Judge — July 1938 — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

N the night we went to see The O Two Bouquets we were sitting by the newsstand in the lobby of the Hotel Algonquin, minding our own business, when up walked Miss Ga- brielle Brune (from the cast of The Two Bouquets) in search of a magazine that contained a department on the theatre. After she had picked up one or two and rejected them as unworthy, the young man with her said (and quite properly, too): “Why not get a copy of THE JupGE; Carroll Case writes for that.” “Oh,” said Miss Brune, “I'm sick of Carroll Case.” That seemed to be our cue, so, plung- ing knee-deep into the game, we piped up: “Let's make it unanimous: I'm sick of Carroll Case, too!” Miss Brune arched an eyebrow in our direction, as though we were an un- pleasant, clammy object, and said: “Is that so?” Then, in the manner of one flying in the face of convention and prettily caught at speaking to strange young men in hotel lobbies, she added: “And whom might you be?” “Carroll Case," we answered, not un- truthfully. From then on, Miss Brune and her escort ignored us as one fallen too low for even the Salvation Army, and left, we presume, for the Windsor Theatre to get ready for their performance. Now we could say that we did not like The Two Bou- quets and give everyone an } opportunity to say: “Why, the old sour-puss didn’t like it be- cause the actors in it are sick of him!” Well, we do hate to disap- point all these Toms, Dicks, and Harriets, but the truth is, we genuinely liked The Two Bouquets and everyone in it, including those who have had a surfeit of us. True, as prac- tically everyone has said be- fore us, the play has a tend. ency to substitute for sheep- counting, but then that’s one of the things we liked about it. Other things we liked (and which we believe you will like) were the costumes by Raoul Rene du Bois, who has a pretty eye for color; the 28 Ls THE THEATRE By Carroll Case scenery designed by Robert Barnhart, who has a keen eye for the Victorian Era, and the splendid direction of Marc Connelly, who has two good eyes for a pretty girl. NCE again, it is the time of year when birds, bees, buttercups, and summer theatres burst forth on rural landscapes. If you like summer theatres, that’s your business, and we would be the last one to say you nay if you are even at this moment considering safaris out into the wild wastes of the thespis country. After all, there are even peo- ple who, we are told, like cold cabbage and lard, or a glass of warm gin with a hair in it. One thing we always say is that it takes all kinds to make up this world. (We always say things like that, that other people have said be- fore.) At any rate, you can have it, with our heartiest condolences. If you like to drive seventy bewildering miles out into the lap of the beyond, to be surrounded immediately upon your arrival by Mar- tin Bomber-like mosquitoes, wood ticks, and forty million flies, go ahead. If you like to watch amateur hams with more oa “HE THINKS You’RE A CrepiTor!” ardor than talent giving forth in passe out-buildings, where the stage looks like something that has been rejected by a horde of hungry termites, and the plas- ter (if any) has a tendency to drop down the back of your neck, and where the precarious structure is held more or less together by the fervent prayers of combined “Groupe” and audience, then that is precisely where you belong. Of course, why anyone takes a bevy of defenseless actors, transports them away from all that they hold dear and from those things to which, as actors, they are accustomed, and why local entrepreneurs keep on doing this year after year, is here and now nominated for a place among the wonders of the world. We'll wager that you cannot name us three summer stock companies that come out ahead of themselves and the local sheriff. That is why they arc called stock companies: they are, one and all, manufactured from the same fabric, usually whole cloth. Tell us not in mournful numbers that this is but an empty dream, because we have, un- fortunately, managed a stock company or two in our time, and have not yet got the taste of wormwood and gall out of our system. Invariably the kind of stock company that we (or anyone else) managed, turned out to be the kind where along about the middle of the second act the bailiff walked in and said: “Who's running this show?", whereupon all present looked as though they were takiny part in a hitch-hiking charade as each hastily thumbed over his shoulder at the guy alone- side, until this unhappy circle of thumbs wound its way right smack-bang back into the questioning —constable’s face. But he was never fooled for an instant. He always knew that from the very moment when he walked in the door he was the bloke who was running that company. Usual- ly right out of town. The sheriff's little helpers then got busy, and by the time they walked out there wasn't even an echo left in the place to mock us. Dear old summer stock days! comicbooks.com