Life — March 22, 1923 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

Comedy and Nightmare E have thrown as many fits as any of the other zsthetes over the Moscow Art Theatre. We beat our palms together and rumpled up our hair at the con- clusion of “Tsar Fyodor,” and cried both “Bravo” and “Brava” at “The Cherry Orchard.” During the last act of “The Lower Depths” we fainted with emotion and had to be carried out by Mr. Gest personally. In short, we consider the Russians a grand aggregation. This, perhaps, entitles us to remark timidly that when . it comes to comedy we have at least fifty people in this country (including visiting English) who can make the Russians look like the Harvard Deutscher Verein giv- ing “Gott Sei Dank, der Tisch Ist Gedecked!” Of course, some of the trouble in this particular case may be due to the fact that no one ever dared tell Ivan Tur- genieff that his comedy, “The Lady from the Provinces,” wasn’t much to boast about, but even granted that Tur- genieff should have stuck to tragedy, there certainly seems no need for all the swirling and mugging and voice-cracking that goes on during the efforts of these matchless tragedians to put across the comedy points. Give a Russian a comedy line and he becomes just a boy again, crying, “Look, look, Papa! Comical!” ND while we are hearing so much of ensemble work, at which the Russians excel, we should like to record our belief tnat there is such a thing as too much en- semble work, especially in a comedy. It doesn’t do to have all the minor characters being funny by themselves up-stage while the rest of the cast is being just as funny as they know how down-stage. The competition be- comes too great. In fact, if we were Mr. Stanislavsky, we should be just a bit worried at all the notice that is being paid to the ensemble work of the company. It would seem that the very best ensemble work would be that which was never noticed at all. Aco oN o NE of the best indications of Laurette Taylor's act- ing ability is the manner in which she emerges un- scathed from bad plays. Aside from its first act, “Humoresque” is pretty nearly all paste. The only trick that Miss Hurst has omitted to wring tears and thrills from her audience is the one where the old couple are forced to leave their home for the poorhouse. There is the playing of the Marseillaise off-stage for no reason at all, the speech about its being Humanity’s war, the idiot boy sobbing and laughing about the house, and, supreme in ruthlessness, the actual parting between mother and son on the eve of his sailing for France, which Miss Taylor aids and abets by moaning and groaning in an unbe- lievably cruel manner. Added to Miss Hurst's utiliza- tion of the blind soldier in “Back Pay,” this scene places her among the first ten in-the Bad Taste tournament. And yet, out of all this mass of imitation jewelry, Miss Taylor shines forth as genuine. Not a genuine Jewess, perhaps, for there is always the sparkling Irish eye of the ever-young Peg to belie the assumed dialect and the wig. But certainly a genuine actress, crying out for a genuine play. N school there was always at least one boy who was pale, nervous, and ineffectual, irritating to the other boys and irritated by them, who bungled feverishly through his classes and games, and finally either ran away from school in a blind rage or was fired. And the next you heard of him, he was one of the country’s lead- ing artists in some line or other. “Roger Bloomer” as a play is nervous and, for the most part, ineffectual. Its attempts at impressionism are often crazy and irritating. In the midst of the workman- like, rosy-cheeked successes on Broadway, Mr: Law- son’s play seems like the neurotic boy in school, and, like him, before long it will probably either be fired or will rush off into the night in a frantic pet. But, being older than you were in school, you will hesitate before kidding “Roger Bloomer.” It gets nowhere in particular, except in the end to an- nounce a few lines from Emerson with an air of present- ing a new solution to the problems of the soul, but there are times during the evening when even the most normal critic must perceive that Mr. Lawson has a gift of satire and a sensitiveness to the sting of all the bunk in the world, and this is really quite a lot, especially, when you consider that across the street is “Humoresque.” Furthermore, Henry Hull has taken the incredibly difficult part of Roger Bloomer and has made it as real as a nightmare character can be made, with Mary Fowler and Louis Calhern to add their own excellent work in support. We did not see the play at its abortive opening, but we gather that whatever credit the Equity manage- ment may have earned by giving refuge to Mr. Law- son’s work, it forfeited by opening it long before it was in any condition to be viewed even by its friends. As it stands now, it is worth seeing as an elementary and fairly unsuccessful laboratory experiment in the drama of the future. R..C. B. comicbooks.com