Life — November 30, 1922 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

HETHER or not it is due to our new spirit of humility born of having seen a playlet of our own in all the ghastly actuality of production, everything in this week’s bundle of new plays looks particularly splendid. We enter, dressed in a gingham frock and sunbonnet, laughing tinklingly and singing: “See, see, dear people! What wonderful things le bon Dieu has sent to us! A comedy, a tragedy and a musical show, one of each and all good!” (Bird whistle.) First comes “Rain.” When we heard that a stage adaptation was to be made of the bitter story by Som- erset Maugham (called “Miss Thompson” when it ap- peared in the Smart Set) we remarked cynically that it would probably be doctored up for the Baptist trade. And when it was announced that Jeanne Eagels, of “Daddies” fame, was to play the part of the broken- down prostitute, you could have heard us laughing harshly a block away and saying: “You see? It’s going to jbe a sequel to ‘Daddies’, in which she turns out to be ‘not a prostitute at all, but his daughter masquerading for a lark.” Therefore, we -deserved all we got.inzthe nature of emotional shock on the opening night of “Rain,” and we may say that seldom have we experienced a more powerful thrill in the theatre than in the last act, when the raucous sound o he old phonograph in the next room signalled the sal,...on of Sadie Thompson from a horrible conversion. ee? HE only thing that the adapters (John Colton and Clemence Randolph) couldn’t do was to make Jeanne Eagels look broken-down. Her voice is coarse and her clothes tawdry, but, as she stands, she is what you might call “in the pink of condition.” And her performance is one of the most startlingly convincing that we have ever seen. “Rain” is not a play to take evangelically-minded peo- ple to. On second thought, it is just the play to take them to. HEN comes Glenn Hunter in “Merton of the Movies.” Harry Leon Wilson’s book has been dramatized by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly and has been tampered with but very little in the process. “ At times it seems as if it had been merely poured out of the cup into the saucer. Which, after all, is probably the safest method to adopt in dramatizing a good book like “Merton of the Movies.” In the last act, however, it stands on its own as a play, and sends you home with the glow of having had a real good cry. For however much comedy there may be hung on “Merton,” the fact remains that as Glenn Hunter plays it, it is one of the most poignantly sad plays in town, The rdle of the movie-crazed youth who thinks that he is a heroic figure while all the time he is being used as a comic, is one which Mr. Hunter fills with such appealing wistfulness and quiet pathos that, instead of laughing as you did in the book, you find your heart gradually but surely being torn from its moorings until it seems as if you could hardly bear it any longer. And even though, at the final curtain, Merton has become reconciled to being a leading low comedian, it is pretty certain that anyone passing his room that night would hear an unmanly snuffling going on-as he faced in the dark the spirits of his shattered ideals. And somehow you don’t like to think about it.. It is impossible to judge just how much of a show “Merton of the Movies” would be without Glenn Hunter. With him it is a great deal more than a mere comedy. ‘WO musical comedies complete the list of cheering announcements for the week. “Up She Goes” at the Playhouse is a musical version of Frank Craven’s old success, “Too Many Cooks” with the music written by Harry Tierney, who gave “Irene” its delightful score. While there is nothing in particular that is spectacularly good about “Up She Goes,” there is a consistently satis- factory feeling that one has while listening to it that is worth buying a couple of seats to experience. Donald Brian dances and a young lady named Gloria Foy dances even more so, and Richard Gallagher seems like a darned nice boy besides being amusing in the manner of a darned nice boy. Altogether just a real good show. And “Little Nellie Kelly,” being a George M. Cohan production, moves at a rate which doesn’t give you time to think whether it is good or not. As a matter of fact, it is mostly good, especially the singing and dancing of Elizabeth Hines and Charles King and the others in a light-footed cast. R.C. B. comicbooks.com