Life — November 23, 1922 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

Something New HOSE of us who have been moaning about the lack of originality in the theatre have been given a run for our passes this month. Mr. Pemberton with “Six Characters in Search of an Author,’ Mr Brady with “The World We Live In,” and Mr. Tyler with “The 4gers” have seemed to say through their clenched teeth: “You want something that hasn’t been done before, do you? Well, take that, and that, and that!” “Six Characters in Search of an Author” is a trans- lation from the Italian of Luigi Pirandello, and is a fascinating combination of George M. Cohan and Plato. To the bare stage of the theatre where a company is gathered for rehearsal come six characters fresh from the imagination of an author who has disowned them. They seek expression through the actors. They ask to be born, and specify their conditions. (This description is rapidly getting involved, and I haven't the slightest idea how it is going to end, but it can’t be any more complicated than the play itself.) Well, anyway, the actors try to put on the play, and playwrights who have seen their works “adapted” by managers and “interpreted” by actors will sit in savage delight through the massacre. In the end the manager decides that the thing is too sombre and rehearsals are begun on another piece. The six characters, or what remains of them, start off again on their search for adequate expression. And the audience reels to its feet, groggy but with th- curious sensation of having been doing some intensive thinking on its own hook, and, what is more, enjoying it hugely. “Six Characters in Search of an Author” is nothing to go to direct from a children’s party, with paper caps on your heads, but a good dose of metaphysics never hurt anyone, and this is about as pleasant a way to take it as you will ever find. hit HEN Mr. Brady, taunted to the point of hysterical prodigality over his second-hand scenery, came leap- ing in a cloud of fire (and the very best fire that money could buy, too) bearing the stupendous Insect Comedy of the Brothers Capek. Turning the scenic production over to the best possible man, Lee Simonson, Mr. Brady shut his eyes and signed che~ks furiously. The result, while it may not reimburse him aswell as did “The Man Who Came Back,” places the theatre-going public in his debt. The entire cast, with the exception of one human, is composed of characters from the insect world, and in their various love-makings, money-makings and war- makings we see a bitter reproduction of our own vaunted human system. The first episode, that of the butterflies, is the least satisfactory of all, savoring of a Winter Garden act in which aphrodisiacs are tossed out to the visiting buyers in the audience by girls dressed as the twelve stages in a butterfly’s downfall. The beetles are better and get across some sharp digs at several institutions which the audience apparently thinks are confined to beetles and laughs at heartily. But in the scene at the ant-hill, a magnificent satire on industrial efficiency and war, the play rises to a tre- mendous height, and the audience, seeing the pointed helmets on the ant warriors, cheer what they consider an exclusive crack at the late Germans, “The World We Live In” is not always as absorbing as it might be, and just because it is about bugs is no sign that the kiddies will love it, but it is something that you ought to see. HE ultimate dose of novelty, however, was dis- pensed at the Punch and Judy Theatre where a group called “The 4gers” (meaning both pioneers and 49th St.) presented a series of sketches written by con- temporary kidders, parodying and burlesquing some of the various forms of dramatic entertainment and per- haps originating one or two new ones. And, while many of the individual acts were very funny by themselves, towards the end of the evening one grew so accustomed to novelty that it ceased to be novel, incongruity became congruous, and there you were, right back where you started from. In their next bill, “The 49ers” would do well to have one or two ordinary two-step and waltz numbers. And right here this department makes public apology to all authors whose feelings have been lacerated in these hitherto ruthless columns. We ourselves collabo- rated in the writing of one of the skits presented by “The 49ers.” We thought it was a scream while we were working on it. Time had to be taken out at in- tervals of five minutes during its typing to give its proud authors a chance to roll on the floor with laughter. The morning broke cloudy and damp, with a chill wind blowing in from the sea. We looked at our little skit in rehearsal and saw what was probably one of the least funny things ever written in America. And through no fault of the actors, either. It just wasn’t funny, that’s all. From now on we will devote our unique talents to criticism. But it will be a more genial, a kindlier criti- cism, with a tendency toward mawkishness. After all, everyone does the best he can, doesn’t he? R. C. B. comicbooks.com an: zat