Evening Star Newspaper, May 12, 1929, Page 49

- Theater, Screen and '‘Music AMUSEMENT SECTION he Sundwy Star. : Motor, Aviation Vand Radio News WASHINGTON, D..C., SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 12, 1929. COLLEEN MOORE- Earle Attractions in Playhouses This Week NATIONAL PLAYERS—“The Thief.” | Henri Bernstein's highly oned | dramatic work, ‘e Thie wiich | served as a starring vehicle for Kyrle Bellew, will be revived in all its original glory by the National Theater Players tomorrow night. A companion piece to “Raffles,” it was first played in Washington exactly 20 years ago, and associated with Mr. Bellew at that time were Effie Shannon as the distraught wife, Herbert Kelcey as the detective | and Eugene O'Brien, who afterward be- came a popular player in motion pic- | tures. Charles Frohman was ti)g pro- ducer. ‘The theme of “The Thief” is woven through the story of a woman morally weakened because of her great love for | her husband. That sounds -like a strange concept of love, and it is. Yet fihh daring character study wrought | y Henri Bernstein reaches real dra- matic heights and makes an intensely interesting play, dealing with psychology that depends upon dynamic action, drama that moves with the steady on- slaught of troops marching into battle. Since there are but four outstanding character creations in “The Thief,” the two leading players, Miss Edith Kirg| and Roger Pryor, will be seen in in-| tensely interesting roles. “The Thief”| serves also to bring back Edward Ar-| nold, one of the most popular players | ever to appear htre in repertoire. He will have the role of the detective, and | Charles Hampden, a character actor of | unlimited ability, also will have an im- portant role. ‘Three interesting sets, designed at the National Theater Players’ studio by | Charles Squires, have been completed | to show different rooms in the famous | French chateau where the action takes | place. | ST. PETER'S PLAYERS—Tomorrow. | The St. Peters’s Players will present, | as their final play this season, “The Parish Priest,” a three-act play by ON THE NEW A Review of Theatrical Affairs Along the White Way By Percy Hammond. ROPHETS of {ll tell the news-| papers of still another peril | confronting the drama. To the | clustered mischiefs that already harass its well-being they add | {he horrid prospect of a famine in| actors, The greedy moviephones, they | say, are gorging themselves with Broad- way artists, and even now the cupboard shows signs of being bare. Earnest pro- | ducers desiring to hire a particular player for an especial role find that he has gone to. Hollywood, there to lead the lucrative lens life. As the talking pictures mature from an art in its in- fancy they will, it is predicted, consume | the entire world’s output of players,| leaving none available for the old-fash- | joned Broadway Simil s for many years about all have proved to be but the mutterin3s | of pale-cyed pessimists. “To mark the omens of coming evil is their great de- light,” and they P asters spondenc e been expressed | the drama, and and s y the bitter visions of despair. I do not all at the moment a h vadway | Al H. Guild. _Hop- Sam Harris uf- e ds_and t White, and Dwight Deere Wiman do their L r silence s 0 < William A. at way. I rememl him some 20 ve ened me, tk awful premonit tures were about 1o~ out of business. The are the last moments of the n hour or two the cinema urped its place as the ar of the indoo tain- upation’s g X 1e play is don reviewer, with moving It was in 1908 or | pul b I ‘The suspicion that the stag r suffer from a dearth of actors is ridicu- lous, The U tial - histrions, anxious to exhibit th selves before the public. There are, I estimate, a hundred thousand students in the many universities of New York Trepared to cawry the go-called torch. | pervisor of the players, says that the | situations. hows. | X lay Washington Richard Hart, tomorrow and Tuesday evenings in the parish hall, Second and C streets southeast. Mr. Hart is mayor of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and it is announced that this will be the first time the play has been presented in Washington. ~ Rev. J. C. Murphy, su- play has had unusual success else- where and he has seen the show pro- duced several times while in foreign countries. There is sald to be an abundance of comedy in the play, with appealing | | | | The cast will include Agnes Nolan, Margaret Tappan, Bernice Keiser, Rob- ert Dillon, Howard Smith, Francis McGarraghy, Thomas O'Donnell and Norman Sims. The St. Peter's Orchestra, under the direction of Agnes McCarthy, has pre- pared a musical program, including late hits 2s well as appropriate music_ for tie play, and Charles Richter and Ch San Fellipo have nrranged especially attractive stage settings. A. U. DRAMATIC CLUB—Friday. The American University Dramatic Club will continue the Shakespearean tradition at the school by presenting next Fridey night at the gymnasium- auditorium on the campus “The Mer- chant of Venice,” under direction of | ‘Wil Hitchins, professor of art at the | university. | Icafl'\n}; roles will be taken by W.| willis Delaplain_ as Shylock, Orrel | Belle Claflin as Portia, Laura Barrett 2s Nerissa, Helen Tucker as Jessica, James Swan as Bassanio, Milton Crist as Gratiano, S. Carlton Ayers as Lo- renzo and Sarah Martz as Launcelot bbo. G?l'he famous old drama will be given in its entirety with simple Shakespear- ean background, eliminating waits for | seenic changes and speeding up produc- tion. The curtain will rise at 8:15 o’clock. YORK STAGE There are numerous Barrymores, Mae Wests, William _Favershams, Alfred Lunts, E. H. Sotherns, Miss Margaret Anglins and Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiskes ambitious to show themselves in public. The least of one’s worries about the Broadway drama should be that it is scarce in actors. There are 300,000 little theater and community ama- teurs ready and eager to supplant the professionals who have absconded to Hollywcod. So we should not worry about the drama’s plights, intrusting them to their traditional security. There are and there always will be more actors th Two small musical reviews were pro- | duced last week—“The Little Show,” by | Messrs, Brady and Winan, nd Street Follies,” by the remnants of the Neighborhood Playhousers. he Little Show,” an uptown product, was curprisingly bright. Rumors had come to Times Square from Asbury Park and Atlantic City, dependable testing sta- hat it was stupid. But on Mon- day evening it proved to be a fleet, wise-cracking and sophisticated vaude- ville, calculated to inspire activity among the ticket brokers. “The Grand Street Follles” was of a different kind. Placing too much confidence in the education of its patrons, it made literate fun of the encyclopedias, slowly spoof- ing the habits’ of such things as the protoplasms, Helen of Troy, Adam and the Creator, Julius Caesar, Lenore Ulric, Noah, Ruth Gordon, Eden’s fatal apple and Mile. Bordori singing a bird | scng innocently entitled “Let’s Do It.” “The Little Show” is a swift, brash ppeal to better Broadway in one of its infrequent trivial moods; “The Grand Street, Fol is a torpid burlesque try- | ing laboriously to kid both the present and the past. The imitations of Mr Carroll, Miss Truemasn and Miss Do othy Sands are vividly chautauguan and do their subjects no good. But if you are in scarch of hasty Broadway sement, I warn you that you can u can at “The Little Show” than % “The he Grand Street Follis Come On Man.” NC“' MBSQCY Of Ceremonles. ‘ 1 ERBERT RAWLINSON, a product of Hollywood and well known pic- | ture actor, 5 to be the new master of | ceremonies and guest conductor at | Loew’s Palace. Rawlinson has appeared | Milionaire, “One Wonderful Night,” | | “Nobod: Bride,” “Million to Burn,” | “High Speed,” “My Neighbor's Wife,” | “The Millionaire Policeman,” “Men of the Night” and “Belle of Broadway.” | by | The second half was silent. | chanical or scratchy. NORMA SHEARER- Palace SCREE EDWARD ARNOLD- : = /\lafional BETTY DRONSON - Fox Dwight Elmendorf THOSE who have often delighted in the travelogues of Burton Holmes,i E. M. Newman and others who have pang of regret at the news of the death, in Roosevelt Hospital, New York, last who used to be a frequent visitor to Washington as an artist entertainer in the field of travelogues. Mr. Elmendorf was a graduate of brought the scenes of other and dis-| tant lands to the National Capital with | their icctures doubtiess. will feel a sy ently Monday, of Dwight Lathrop Elmendort, | S00% frequently - encountered i the | )3 ™ iccesstul | hundred years Is the hardest.” YRNA " M and LOY and EDWARD ARTINDEL - Metropolitan B " b ETTERS < olumbia Scerce /rodom “SHIRAZ Little Theater JOSE.PH SCHILDKRAUTand LAURA LAPLANTE Rialto “The First ANAGER STEVE COCHRAN is going to have “a hundredth anni- versary,” and he is going to celebrate it the week of June 10 of this year in 2 memorable way. Some patient optimist whose name encountered in the But Princeton and in 1897 he became a | war _correspondent, later taking up travel as a hobby and soon becoming well known for his lectures on and pic tures of foreign countries, Besides be- ing & writer and lecturer of ability, he was an artist and photographer of un- usual accomplishments. He was among the first of the travel lecturers to show views of India and Japan and it is said that his trips to the Far East cost him $50,000 each. Mr. Elmendorf retired as a lecturer several years ago because of the of his voice, and his death Monda: followed a long illness. Lonsdale's Praise. A KIND word for talking pictur general, znd for the screen of O. P. Heggie in particular, was ex- pressed recently by the English drama- tist, Frederick Lonsdale, in an article in the London Mail. Heggie plays one of the principal roles in “The Letter,” Paramount’s lat- est all-talking picture, in which Jeanne Eagels has the leading role. Lons rticle says in part: “People in this country who regard ‘talkies’ as a wild dream or a ingen- ious what is already an accomplished fact. This was proved (o me beyond all shadow of doubt bv one simple experi- ment. I was shown in New York a film, half of which was accompanied dialogue and appropriate sounds. Its flatness and dullness by contrast were positively ludicrous. “It is a mistake, too, to suppose that the dialogue is necessarily shrill, me- One of the actors whom I saw and heard in a film was O. P. Heggie, and nothing could have A. is a swarm of poten- | in many ‘pictures, among them: “The | been more impressive than the dia- logue as he spoke it. The reproduction was marvelous, perfect—it was exactly like listening to the man in an ordi- nary theater, or, better still, in one's drawing room.” toy are blinding themselves to | STEVE E. COCHRAN, rriz & Fwing Photo. rating his first hundred like it. He is going to hundredth week of his bany operation th nnial_celebration,” I tions to do | steve isn't ce wtbing stock con for a “cen is making | brown. . Way back in the Spring of 192 | with Leneta Lane es its bright par- | ticular feminine charm and _Minor | Watson as a much overwrought leading |man, the National Th Players | burst forth upon an astonished world in a_ never-to-be-forgotten comedy, “The Nervous Wreck.” And immmedi- ately they leaped into local fame that has never waned nor developed a tarnish since. The theme of the play !may have affected the organization, jfor Minor Watson, after riveting_the favor of capacity houses, soon "after .broke away for the emoluments, but » and he it up on | »H}Vlrfll_dred” me, of a road attr tion, and was to the players, ap | parently fore John_Glyn MacFar- | lane leaped into his place, and, with | Edward Arnold, managed to hold the | | not the greater crowds until John Warner lit upon the | scene. , Then all went well until a long Summer season Wwas | | brought to a close. | | " In 1926, “not at all disfigured but | very much in the ring,” as they have it | in ‘the popular classics, the National Players started their second season, | with Leneta Lane and John Warner | still in the leads. But about midseason | Miss Lane disappeared, and in her place came Leona Powers, the “It” of | leading ladies, and John Warner still | doing duty in the lover roles. ~About this time Mrs. Adelaide Hibbard joined the company, and since her advent she | has shared the honors with all of them, ‘ and—well, may she never leave them. In 1927 Miss Powers and John War- ner began and ended the season in the | leads, and Charles Hampden became a | notable recruit, now developed into a permanent and popular fixture. | 1928 was memorable in that both | Lane and Leona Powers took | leading lady, and John War- | the melody in Irving Berlin' song, “still lingered on.” 1928 was | memorable also for the advent of Helen | Wallace and Robert Brister, two shect anchors of the current company. 1929 behaved badly, for it took away | the familiar leading players that had brightened many a production of Mr. | Cochran’s company, that now had won | wide fame throughout the country, not | oniy for “packing them in” the stage | term for attracting capacity audiences, | but for excellently acted and magnifi- | cently staged productions that rivaled | the Boardway-born road compani That excellent and impressive actres: Mary Newion, opened the current season ng woman, and Wilford | | Lyten oon won many admire | as lea ma They gave perform ances in (wo productions, “Madame X' |and “What Every Woman Know which stand unchallenged for their | worth. And then they vanished, giv- | ,ing way to Edith King and Roger | Pryor, both of whom seem likely soon ' to cccupy the niches in the temple of popularity filled by their worthy prede- cessors, ‘The current season seems likely to take a very pleasant twist in the right direction by bringing back to the fold Edward Arnold, in the current week’s play, and the irrepressible Billy Phelps, May 27, in “The Spider.” | pupils Traditional Shakespeare (“J'HERE are various ways of teach- ing Shakespeare,” according to Prof. Will Hutchins, who directs dra- matics out at the American University campus, “and the best way of all is to act_him.” That college students can do this in a manner worthy of the high demands | of this most exacting form of drama his have already demonstrated. Their appearance in scenes from “King Lear” before the Shakespeare Society last Winter was a revelation to many. | But how to do it? Among conflicting traditions which one shall be followed? “To this,” says the professor, “the answer is simple. Every play in the world is written in the conventions of the period which gave it birth. To impose upon it the conventions of any other period may not kill it; there are not only actor-proof plays, but plays which will survive even igrorant stage management—which they often get— but to get the most out of any play, do it as nearly as possible in the manner the author #ntended. “The great qualities which are writ- ten into the dramas of Shakespeare are: First, poetry, intentional and un. dshamed, and, second, a-Tapidly mov- ing story, in which speed and flexi- bility make up the continuous fabric, which must not be broken. To impose | upon the free fancy of Shakespeare the barren conventions of modern scenery is to kill him. ‘If I had all the scenery in the world,’ says the ardent exponent of Elizabethan traditions, ‘I would not use a stitch of it, much as I love to do fine scenic production where it belongs.’ “Thus the production of ‘The Mer- chant of Venice, which marks the culmination of the year's work, next Friday night will present the entire text, without cuts and with every part in the hands of students, who are en- thusiastically ‘sold’ on this method of rl]llldymg the greatest dramatist of them o Identification Complete. IMMY GLEASON, the wise-cracking actor and playwright, now engaged in making talking pictures, was more impressed with the prevalence of plus- fours in Hollywood than any other thing, ‘Teport has it. Though every man in the place seemed to go around in the college-boy togs, Jimmie shunned them as he would a_plague. Recently a New York producer re- ceived a letter from Gleason in which | he wrote: “If you get out this way, drop | wastes of the desert stretching away in | theatergoers, Youw'll have no |the moonlight, lines of sleeping soldiers | iraw more than her ciisiom, around and see me. trouble finding me; I'm the guy with the long pants!" Photoplaysr evening. evening. FOX—“One Stolen Night.” COLUMBIA—“The Letter.” EARLE—“Why Be Good?” RIALTO—“Show Bcat.” This LITTLE THEATER—"Shiraz.” Thi PALACE—“The Trial of Mary Dugan.” “The Trial of Mary Dugan,” Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer's talking production, adapted from the famous play of Bay- ard Veiller, is the feature screen attrac- by a cast which includes Lewis Stone, H. B. Warner, Raymond Hackett and Lilyan Tashman. The plot concerns Mary Dugan, a chorus beauty, on trial for the murder of her “sugar daddy,” Edgar Rice. The State produces evidence that her night- robe was bloodstained and that her fingerprints were on the knife with which West was stabbed. Her attorney is interrupted by the arrival of the young brother of the accused girl. His sister has sent him through law school, and he is dissatisfied with the manner in which his sister's case is being handled. He becomes her counsel, and | puts her on the stand, only to learn that his sister accepted large sums of money from men to help defray his college expenses. At the last moment the brother casts a bombshell into the case by placing his sister’s former de- fense lawyer on the stand, and develops testimony to prove that this lawyer was the lover of the slain man’'s widow and the real murderer. On the stage Herbert Rawlinson, “Hollywood’s Ambassador of Joy,” will appear as the new master of ceremonies in the C. A. Niggemeyer production, “Bright Lights,” featuring the Palace Syncopators, Bankhoff and Cannon, D'Orsay, Carroll and Gorman, Cal- way and Gray, the Gamby-Hale Girls and the Dave Gould Male Dancing Sex- tet. The M-G-M News, the Fox Movietone News, short subjects, Charles | Gaige at the organ, the Palace Orches- | tra and usual house features will com~ | plete the program. | METROPOLITAN—“The Desert Song.” | Screen operetta is mnow a fact. Through the magic of the talking pic- ture “The Desert Song,” one of the most tuneful and most popular musical | plays ever shown on the stage, has been | brought to the screen, and will be | the screen feature at Crandall's Metro- politan this week. Sigmund Romberg's score of magnificent choruses and the charmingly beautiful solo numbers have been reproduced by Vitaphone, while the cast of the picture is one of un- usual excellence, including John_ Boles, Louise Fazenda, Carlotta King, Johnny | Arthur, John Miljan, Marie Wells, Jack | Pratt, Edward Martindel, Otto Hofl- man, Robert E. Guzman and Myrna oy. The scenes throughout the picture | are beautiful, ranging from am exten- | sive French military post in Morocco to encampments of the Red Shadow and his band of native Riffs in rocky passes of the mountains, and far-flung vistas of the rolling sands of the great African desert, with the Riffs, singing they go, riding their magnificent at breakneck speed into the set- | sun. oy Del Ruth directed, and the retta was adapted for the screen by Harvey H. Gates. FOX—"One Stolen Night.” An English fort in the Sudan, sandy in the barracks—midnight. A soldier, fully dressed, slips stealthily out of one METROPOLITAN—“The Desert Song.” tion at Loew’s Palace this week. Norma | Shearer, in her first talking picture, ! plays the title role, and is surrounded | This Week SCREEN ATTRACTIONS OF THE WEEK. PALACE—“The Trial of Mary Dugan.” This afternoon and This afternoon and is afternoon and evgning. This afterncon and evening. This afternocn and evening. afternoon and evening. This afterncen and evening. of the buildings, climbs over the wall swrounding the fort, drops to the ground and runs—a deserter—fleeing | the regiment and thus taking the blame {for the crime of his dishonest brother, | who remains at his p Very much t that is the y of “One Stolen Nig: the Vitaphone talking picture, featuring Betty Bronson and William Collier, jr., which is the current screen feature at the Fox. g The story deals with an itinerant troupe of circus performers who be- come involved in the attempt of one brother to save the other. The cast includes Mitchel Lewis, Charles Hill Mailes, Rose Dione, Harry’ Todd, Otto Lederer and Jack Santora, The picture was directed by Scott R. Dunlap. The stage program will offer another | bevy of Broadway musical comedy and | revue players, presented by John Irving Fisher; the Fourteen Foxettes in new | dance routines by Melba Vierdag, ballet | mistress, and Leon Brusiloff and the 40 Fox Jazzmanians in a novelty, in addi- * tion to furnishing from the stage the | musical accompaniment of the other performers. Fox Movietone News in sound and picture will be an important part of the program. COLUMBIA—“The Letter.” . “The Letter,” featuring Jeanne Eagels in Peramount’s all-talking picture, is the screen attraction at Loew'’s Colum- | bia this week. O. P. Heggie plays in a | supporting role. The picture is an adaptation from a story of W. Somerset Maugham, author of “Rain.” Its locale is on a lonely rubber plantation near Singapore. Leslie Crosbie and her husband live here, a conventional married English couple. One night Robert goes to town on business, and Leslie immediately sends a letter to Geoffrey Hammond, a worthless bachelor, who has forsaken her for a Chinese woman, and when he cames to Leslie’s bungalow in response to her letter she kills him. In court | she tells how she was forced to kill him in self-defense, outlining to the jury | that he was intoxicated and sought to force his attentions upon her. She is about to be acquitted when the Chinese {woman sends a messenger to Leslie’s (lawyer, Joyce, with the demand that he |give her $10,000 for the lectter, or else | she will turn it over to the state. Joyce buys the letter and Leslie is released. That night Robert, her husband, who [insists on paying the cost of the trial, learns the truth. He accuses his wife and she admits that she loved Ham- mond. His answer is that she shall continue to live with her memories in | the same haunts. Keller Sisters and Lynch provide en- ‘tertammg moments of song and dance in a Metro Movietone act, and Van and Schenck sing as only they can. The | Fox Movietone News, the M-G-M News, { the Columbia Orchestra and usual house | units comprise the remainder of the ill. | EARLE—“Why Be Good.” |" Colleen Moore, typifying the 1929 ! version of the American girl, is s2en in | the picture feature at the Earle Theater this week, her First National picture, “Why Be Good? Always a favorite Collec Washington core should throng of followers, for “Why Be Good” is res (Continued on Seccond Page)