Life — January 11, 1929 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

Tardy Tribute In this season, when plays have been whirling in and Robert out like patrons of a re- «hl volving-door, the old Four- Benchley teenth Street Theatre has preserved a dignified stability and gone on quietly packing them in night after night. In case you are one of those citi- zens who get panicky and confused on the moors south of Forty-second Street, we will explain that the old Fourteenth Street Theatre is where Eva Le Gallienne is carrying on her “experiment.” Miss Le Gallienne’s Civic Repertory Theatre can hardly be called an “experi- ment” any longer, as it is now half through by its second highly successful season. The | only experimenting the management has | to indulge in now is with standee traffic. Some way must be found to keep the standees in the balcony (where they are sent when all the standing-room down stairs is sold) from toppling out into the pit. It is dangerous for those with seats down stairs to have to keep dodging fall- ing bodies. If you pay for an orchestra seat you ought at least to have it to your- Tis department can take no credit for even encouraging Miss Le Gallienne in| ang her march to success. After years of at- tendance at down-town experimental thea- tres, where the will is taken for the deed good of the Drama at heart, we had come to the conclusion that the salvation of our stage today lay in the commercial theatre. Most of the young folks who creak about earnestly on the tiny stages of Greenwich Village in an attempt to depict Life in all its starkness, are just downright bad actors and actresses and always will be. The fact that they are sincere doesn’t help a bit when you are forced to crouch on one of their benches | guest-réle in “The Cherry out front for two or three hours. They are willing to work for no money at all and that is just what they are worth, We had come to the conclusion that the best actors were those getting the most moncy, be- cause their services were most in demand, and had come to feel that, if any of the down-town experiments were any good, they would overcome their aversion to the commercial theatre sufficiently to move up town where we could see them. The Theatre Guild did and now look at it— the envy of the Shuberts. “As soon as they | have anything worth doing,” we said with a cynical leer, “they will come up to Broadway and get commercial, with good comfortable seats.” Bet Miss Le Gallienne has stuck to Four- teenth Street and, by charging exceedingly moderate admission, has achieved a suc- cess which makes some of the up-town theatrical thoroughfares look like Main Street on Sunday afternoon. If you have any idea of seeing “The Cherry Orchard” in her theatre, or “Peter Pan,” you had better call up a week in advance; other- wise you will find yourself out in Four- teenth Street with nothing to do but drop nickles in a perfume machine. And, what with devoted subscribers to the Civic Repertory who take up their options each night, you may find that even a week in advance is not enough. We went three times before we finally made “The Cherry | Orchard,” and then had to stand. and anyone allowed to act who has the} Miss Le Gallienne’s repertory at present consists of the two plays before mentioned, “The Would-Be Gentleman,” “L’Invita- tion au Voyage” and an occasional revival from last year’s list, such as “Cradle Song” and “The Master Builder.” They are all good plays, some better than others but not one of them undeserving of an | evening. “The Cherry Orchard,” “Cradle Song” and “Peter Pan” are the most ambitious, with Nazimova playing a Orchard” and ine Hutchinson as Wendy in “Peter gon Brecher appears in one form or another in most of the plays, some- times to good advantage, other times a little gutteral. The acting as a whole is far above the average experimental theatre acting, and Miss Le Gallienne herself, in spite of a tendency to play everything as if it were written by Ibsen (except “Peter Pan,” in which she is delightfully buoy- ant) often recalls the days of “Liliom” when we felt that she was on the verge of being a very fine actress. We liked her best, perhaps, in one of the less pretentious of her offerings, “L'Invitation au Voyage,” a translation from the French of Jean-Jacques Bernard by Ernest Boyd. This is a quiet little play, dealing with a wife who thought she wanted to go to South America with an- other man and then found out that she didn’t, but it is nicely suited to M Le Gallienne’s casual manner and is well worth seeing. Here again, however, she makes us feel that the action is taking place near a fjord. . BH s No matter which evening you select, you are pretty likely to get more than your money's worth. Even in “The Would-Be Gentleman” which, as “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme” has probably given more Cercles Frangais a ch: to disport themselves than any other amateur mate- rial on the Moliére list, you will find some- thing good, thanks to the adaptation by that delightful British humorist, F. Anstey. This, however, we would place at the bottom of the present list and “The Cherry Orchard” at the top, although “Cradle Song” is a beautiful thing if you are in the mood to sit quietly and not whisper. With all humility for our tardiness, we want to take this occasion, when the up- town theatre is a mad-house, to congratu- late Miss Le Gallienne on her quiet victory in Fourteenth Street. comicbooks.com