Evening Star Newspaper, March 22, 1931, Page 47

| Stage NeWs and Screen and Gossip AMUSEMENT SECTION he Sunday Star, Motor, Aviation, Radio Programs Part 4—10 Pages Scene Hont RANGCO” 2¢ Rufto. ARY PICKFO WASHINGTON, " SCRE TOE.. GOLDE HORSEY (.S'Z':?jEJ P THURSTON, V- JeMAGICIAN, Shubert-Belasco. « , RD in KIKI Columbra ~ Critics Will Ciriticize By W. H. Landvoig!. 'PHOLDERS of dramatic art | in the National Capital landed a hearty wallop on the solar plexus of Pinero’s *latest play.” Perhaps if Sir Ar- thur Wing Pinero had remem- bered what his poets have written of the ravages of age, instead of recalling the unceasing praise that had always come to him in the past, he might not have writ- ten “Dr. Harmer.” Or had he been content “to rest’ upon the abundant laurels already richly| earned, he might not have un- earthed an experiment made seven years ago, when he had nearly| reached his well deserved three- score-and-ten, and unloaded it on this turbulent age. Had he not done this, he might also have avoided being murdered with a blackjack just at the drop of his final curtain, a fate he so vividly pictured in his “latest play.” 1t is always sad to contemplate fallen tness, sad to look upon a shattered masterpiece, pathetic to see a rose that has once bloomed in the regal glory of the garden, after it has shed its frag- rance like a spendthrift, and lles crushed and withered upon the| walks of men who forget so quick- | 1y and so easily. * x % x AND then again there comes the hopeful thought that “Dr. Harmer” may have fallen into the hands of the movie makers before g reached the -artistic talents of p. Merivale, or in any event, that the author,, in his declining years, may possibly have. suc- cumbed to & pernicious influence of the movies upcn his imagina~ t! and: that, after all, he is at Jeast partly guiltless of the affront to _our local judgment. g Be that as it may, the thought | is advanced merely as a soft cush- jon to break the fall of the once famous .playwright, now — who that the verdict, as a perfect| whole, was at least tantamount to “I do not love thee, Doctor Fell, The reason why I cannot tell; But this alone I know full well, I do not love thee”—"“Dr.'Harmer.” Perhaps Byron was right in writing, “Years steal Fire from the nd as Vigour from the Limb, and Life’s -enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.” But why, oh, why, then, are there 80 many old men in’ public life— ! in Congress, for instance? | % AL E 3 UT as this is a very sericus mat- | ter, dethroning a famous play- | wright and in the days when fa- mous playwrights are not so plen- tiful, may it not be possible that back of the wallop of the local critics there might be, (Perchance, a failure to grasp the drift of Sir Arthur’s play and therefore, in A consequence, a missing of the real merits of “Dr. Harmer”? The sug- gestion is offered in the spirit of fair play. It may be recalled that so great an authority as Washing- ton Irving once wrote “There is a certain meddlesome spirit, which, in the garb of learned research. goes prying about the traces of history, casting down its monu- ments and mutilating its fairest trophies. Care should be taken to vindicate great names_from such rnicious erudition.” ‘Even Philj; erivale did not escape unscathed, and Mr. Merivale is accounted by | wij} those who pretend to know as'a great and finished actor. Yet one of our writers went so far as to h! pooh! him and call him by | 5} is real name, which, it must be admitted, is going far in the mat- ter of impartial criticism. * x k¥ OWEVER, there is big work ahead, for tonight we shall have our first glimpse at Elmer Rice’s famous Pulitzer prize win- ner, “Street Scene,” which one knows?-—a shattered idol to those who know. While it may be true that the force of the mighty wal- lop lank “in Washington was m net ‘broken by a seeming of the y due to, varia; be disposed inion, few | 8l e taclmku-tm fact !those terribly unemotional Bos-' foreign critic has said embodies all the excellence of the ancient classics, while tomorrow night the Theater Guild of New York will|dr reappear with its hls boast of the season, Maxwell Anderson’s Eliz- beth “the - Queen,” ‘over which }——— ; tonese are said actually to have gone daffy. It takes sirong lan- guage to land a play in these days of superlative celluloid emphasis, | but some things must be taken for granted, and until the post-mor- tem by our local judges shall have been made it may be fairly safe to rely upon the reputations es- tablished by both plays in foreign parts. “Strictly Dishonorable,” with which the National Theater will close its regular season, and which is expected a week away, will not have to run the ganlet, as Washington has already seen the play, and large audiences ap- | peared to like it very much. News | reports of the injury suffered by | the fam-us Howard Thurston, our one surviving great prestidigitator, in connection with domestic ec- | centricities, may deprive Wash- ington of greeting hgn on Easter Sunday evening at the Belasco, where he is announced. ND paraphrasing the Bard of Avon, “Soon may the Winter of our discontent be made glorious Summer,” for on Easter Monday, but ‘two ‘short weeks hence, will come those ever-famous National Theater Players, with their allur- ing repertory, all set and eager for | the fray. Manager Steve Cochran has corralled his leading man, Stanley Ridges—everybody shculd | recall him, for he was one of the luminaries that helged make the Players’ season of 1928 magnificent and memorable. And glowing none the less brightly on the the- atric chandelier of the new outfit be Leneta Lane, of whom many say she was the most popu- lar of ail the leading ladies that ever landed in the Cochran coop. ong . with them . will be the perennial favorités and others who are new in the stock line-up, but who, nevertheless, arée known for their ial excellences in their respective lines. Manager Coch- ran also is bumln% a superior galaxy of plays t> be presented “with never a dud in the lot.” But best of all, there is a veritable host of theater-loving folks in these parts who can always be tempted with good, Ilegitimate ama, and they are giving ‘evi- dence of the fact by the .scores lon hat. ake daily pouring mto Are 14 the box office. D. C, SUNDAY MARCH and N MORNING, 22, 1931 LYNN FONTANNE a1/ ALFRED LUNT, i ELIZABETH THE QUEEN. Aatronal. Jrom YTHE: S 5 SOUTHERNER. Palace .. RHODA MERLE., #ROLLUNG ALONG" (Stage) Belasco's "First Night“ DAVlD BELASCO, now well on his way to complete recovery, visited bis theater last Wednesday and saw his comedy, “Tonight or Never,” for the first time. Stricken in Baltimore a few days be- fore the play was scheduled to open in New York, Mr. Belasco was brought home and has been confined to his apartment in the Gladstone Hotel for the past four .months. . At one time grave doubt was expressed as to his uitimate ‘recovery,’as he suffered a re- lapse in Pebruary. But an indomitable spirit and careful nursing’ have gradu- ally restored his health. ‘The opening of “Tonight or Never,” on Tuesday, November 18, was the first premiere of one of his own’ plays that Mr. Belasco has missed in a half cen- tury of producing—a record that will probably stand unique in the history of the theater. Last Wednesday evening, by the way, marked the 139th performance of the successful comedy. BICHARD DIX 7% CIMARRON, ropolitans Stage and Screen Attractions This Week On the Stage. NATIONAL—“Elizabeth the Queen.” Theater Guild play. Opens tomorrow evening. BELASCO—"Street Scene.” Opens this evening. JUNIOR THEATER—“Quality Street.” Saturday morning and afternoon. GAYETY—“Cabaret Girls” (burlesque). ~evening. This afternoon and On the Screen. R-K-O KEITH'S—“Behind Closed Doors.” evening. RIALTO—"“Rango.” This afternoon and evening. PALACE—"The Southerner.” This afternoon and evening. EARLE—“Beau Ideal.” This afternoon and evening. COLU;MBIA—Mary Pickford’s “Kiki.” This afternoon and eve- ning. - FOX-—“Charlie Chann Carries On.” This afternoon and evening. METROPOLITAN—“Cimarron.” This afternoon and evening. NATIONAL—“Trader Horn” closes this evening. “Street Scene.” “STREEI‘ SCENE,” which Willlam A, Brady presents at the Shubert- Belasco Theater this evening, won Elmer Rige, the author, the Pulltzer Prize. It is now playing in London, Berlin and other continental cities. ‘When the curtain rises on the first act, the audience faces the facade of & brownstone apartment house in mod- emn New York, a once-magnificent 10- family beehive that shelters bookfuls of human lives. In the close-packed ac- tion which covers a period of 24 hours are revealed the excitements and the | comedies of these lives, the loves and the hates. You follow the dreams of Sam, the young law student who neglects his books to write poems for Rose. You Iumlnymwr:;m This afternoon and I Filming Sumatra WHEN Ernest - Schoedsack returned from Sumatra, where he spent & 4 year filming “Rango,” he found more than 1,000 letters awaiting him at the studio, and 90-per cent of them were requests from strangers and chance acquaintances to be included in Schoed- sack’s next venture into unknown cor- ners of the world. “The popular belief that the life of an expedition in the tropics is one of pleturesque tents, spotless hunting clothes, and nany native servants, is ridlculo\us,: says Schoedsack. are: Mae Jones, flashily pretty but cheap; Vincent, an overgrown bully; Shirley Kaplan, the patient school teacher, and the married couple, the Buchanans, whose baby is born, just & few hours before death visits ‘the apartment next dodr. . Older people fiwlre u:h 'rh‘f ny»heuu'gu!‘ulun mu- clan, the humorous, ipy Jones; Frank narrow-mind- ed, stern, driving his pleasure-hungry wife, Anna, to the arms of the casual Steve Sanky, and numerous others—all of them woven into drama of common- {llm life that grips, fascinates and at imes thrills as fiction never could. - estern Sumatra. for the setting of “‘Jungle ‘War” he was accompanied by his wife, Alfred: Willlams, - & cameraman, and thirty natives. . This small group bullt the entire- base camp of five bamboo huts, hunted their own food, cooked it, fought malaria and the menacing jungle animals, doctored their own wounds and were drenched every twenty-four hours by the tropical rainstorms. ‘The entire camp was up and at work at 5 o'clock every morning, and entire nights were spent packing film and oil- ing cameras to save them from the destructive dampness. For twelve months the expedition was isolated from - the outside world, their only amusements consistin & few books, and two decks of sticky cards. On two occasions, hhhvflouawnumm?’ —— A Color Break - gering march ‘back home was affecting and g of conversation, - i | Socir " bamibon mat for Aitec dave. b uf , ' torrential storms. S LITA GREY CHAPLIN, MARYASTOR and RICARDO CORTEZ, #BEHIND OFFICE. DOORS"” ¥ ZKO. Keilhs. v LCRETTA YOUNG, % DEAU IDEAL, Farle. G ¥ Foatured on Stage of the Earle. Guild’s Post-War Drama By Percy Hammond. HE Theater Guild uses 70 players, moving pictures, both sound and silent, and a musical accom- paniment, to bring to the stage the late Hans Chlumberg's sav- agely satirical post-war drama “‘Miracle of Verdun.” Chiumberg was a former Austrian cavalry officer, who died a few- days after the first production of his play last October, in Leipzig. ‘The size and novelty of the produc- tion and the tremendous possibilities of the play’s basic idea—the physical res- urrection of war dead—surrounded the Gulld's experiment with more than the usual first-night interest, and for several of the earlier scenes, at least, this interest and curiosity were upheld. ‘The first curtain rose on a wids, minous cross set against what sug- gested,a- background of evening sky, and before one had quite divined its exact significance, its horizontal arm flashed - into three moving picture screens, across which began to race intensely realistic sound pictures of troops charging through & barrage and Just seating themselves in their to what was, in effect, the thick of the fighting of 1916, was dramatic and = splendid preparation for the scen which imm tely followed—a bitterly satirical, acted ep‘vlode showing a crowd of tourists visiting the battlefields. There was the philosophical eold French' caretaker, the flip guide and typical tripper groups from all nations, includihg & loud-voiced American who kept complaining that in Belgium the year before they had got a much better show for less money—not a few thous- ands of dead, but tens of thousands of them, all in the same place, and for a smaller round-trip fee. various types—German, French and others, and their women and children—were wel differentiated mg u:!“ cast; med'v):féex episode was crisply and . a sa bite, and in it, perhaps, the g‘:fidmn realized itself most success- two_episodes led naturally to that in which the dead soldiers thyem- selves, once . the tourists have gune, come slowly to life and, the wooden crosses which had their graves,’ and still in their rags, caked with mud and with the death still on thejr faces, episode, too, was well contrived and well written, and its ending, French and other ,h(e in weary marching order, sing- ing a German folksong as they went, | play, dramatically ef- Tective, o ‘There _followed three scenes in a ing his pipe in bed while his valet did the telephoning. e “I think life is beautiful and grand and “heroic,” Jennifer Davis re- marks early in Channing Pollock’s new “The House' Beautiful,” “and magybe it is—all around the very people who think it's ugly and sordid and prosy. What's prosy about doing your Job and loving your husband and sit- ting with his hand in yours through the long twilight evenings?” Her husband’s sentiments are no less as he also announces early in the action, and unseen trumpets were blowing for- ever along his courageous path. They were unseen, but not unheard, and every time that Archie seemed about to lose another of life's humble battles, the little house beautiful would fade out for the moment, while through a trans- parent backdrop would appear a tableau of Archie in a knight's armor, waving aloft his good broad sword and routing the forces of sin and blackness. Once, when unscrupulous Guy Stay- ton and the other engines of evil seemed about to force him to repeal the soning law. for the determined enforcement of e | which Archie had been elected mayor of his little Jersey suburb, this tableau revealed him, sword in one hand, his other gripping the halyards of the eas- tle's banner. = “Haul it ™ manded Stayton, in the armor of a Black Knight by this time. But “Way there!” shouted Archie, and with his son lunging to his rescue, the Black Knight was routed, and “The flag rises!” cried the victorious Archie, while trum. pets again all round—"“as in Lohe; ] according to Mr. Pollock's stage ‘The personality and art of Miss Mary tlon. 11| Phillips, as Jennifer, brought truth and otherwise beauty to much that might have been pretty hard to bear. James Be"&.e reu:’uy 50 “x’n!cm as one of the condemned men “The Lagt Mig" played the husban. drawn-out nerves, it was less his than the author's fault. - Worthington Miner's hllfl% of the frequent changes of scene and - ing was excellent, ‘::'fle Jo Mielziner's Fo LRI A Pinchot Helps a Bankhead NOTE‘!W her impersonation of the Nun in “The Miracle” and her work with Max Reinhardt in Ger- many, Rosamund Pinchot, famed for beauty and member of the well-known Pinchot 1 'y stepped into o it New Yfl‘k’vfim e played & small *in which her 'ma fi