Evening Star Newspaper, December 13, 1931, Page 61

Stage afid Screen News and Gogsip —_—— AMUSEMENT SECTION he Sunday Star. Motor, Aviation, Radio Programs i Part 4—8 Pages WASHINGT "ON D. C, SUNDAY KARL DANE , PAT O'BRIEN STHE, B1 o 1931. .\[A()RA\'IA\'(L DECEMBER 13, SHIRLEY GREY and RICHARD SSECRET SERVICE” - K& JOHN GILBERT bagv RENEE ADORE PARACE -coLumara Armistice Between Stage And Screen Factions May Bring About Each to lté Placc and an Good Results| End of Bickering Could‘ Mean the Salvation of Both—Making the World Laugh—~Local Theaters This Week. “l I row you'd better quit play business. They don’ want you.” With a very decided accent on |Iocks, the last “you,” this was the la- |announcement NLESS you can make ’em | What laugh {gen heads off or | And there are many others, thrill ’em to the mar-!:‘k}u | the | soul-composers, also are on the i By W. H. Landvoigr. 4} the world calls “broke.” tooy Indeed that even | the people’s daily | feel the strain are now told movies, following of closely the receiverships l conic message from the seats of |in the legitimate theater. Mere- the mi i is | tricious the mighty which ‘eachsn th;s{ | partly the cause of the downfall was conveyed by an old trouper |l both. Many will guess that department during the week. in publicity, one who is both in- | genious and knows his theater. | It wasn't encouraging, for not every writer for a dramatic column has the marrow-thrilling | skill, and if the truth must be| told the smiles when he displays | his wares are quite as apt to be | at him gs to be due to what he | thinks or says | I)RAMA both tense and tragic | making of the| of the “unem- yed” at dribbled into the National Capital at the opening of the week. There seemed to something ominous in lhe‘ t of the pageant as it moved rendezvous in equipages ranging from a “tin Lizzie” to a fair-sized truck, some piled high with human freight and its mea- pment and all displaying of desperation and some, ps, despair. Coming as it did, with the assembling of Congress and closely following earnest and impressive appeals for contribu- tions to the Community Chest, it seemed to bring with it an emo- tion better fitted for a thrill than for laughter. There was evidence of a condition whose call is for careful consideration, the solu- tion of a dramatic problem that ht shake the walls of any 1eater, in many years s the world at large had er need of laughter. Wise 1 laugh when fools but sneer It is always better a problem with 2 smile 1 ready, indeed drop of a doesn’t want need is g good humor. It tly trying to forget some of them per- were better not for- least, at fashion these days, if g0 wrong is to suggest And passing from the s things of life to the thea- 1 has its way of saying things, things a_ sur- these very contended al their s help matters the theater only in terms money appear already to have de their survey, and, in the lan- ge of the message from th- ob- sery press agent, they have concluded that the best way to divert minds burdened with worry is to “make 'em laugh,” or “thrill ’em ’til they shake in their seats.” Discordant orchestras have been ut to work like sweet bells angled out of tune ancd songs rough and riotous have been forced in to lend effectiveness to the spectacular in musical come- dy and feminine revue. Large audiences surge into the play- houses and a wondering world is thrilled with stories of marvel- ous box-office records. But the eavalcade that rushed into the ty last Sunday wag not inter- ¥4 memboers evidentiy |on speaking terms, in its moods from the gay to the are b presents entertainment may be | there is something more serious behind it all. * % x % ‘SO that, getting back to the proverbial see! mutton, the time for the talking palace and the legitimate playhouse, acting well their parts, to get together, back as it were Toward this end it might be ad- missible to observe that every human being, every human de- vice, has its proper place in the affairs of mankind. The problem, however, first is to fit each in its proper place and then to endeav- or to insure to each the fruits of its own particular mission. The legitimate stage is the nat- ural home of the drama. And the drama should remain there pri- marily for the cultural develop- ment of the people and, second- arily, for their entertainment. For centuries the arts of the theater have been fostered, im- proved and perfected in the le- gitimate theater. The motion pic- ture, either with or without voice, has no such exalted mission. The dominant reason for its existence is that it affords entertainment satisfying and witt the reach of the poorest of us all. It can- not supplant the stage, nor, in- deed, can it build itself up by the sacrifice of the legitimate theater. The people need them both and want them both. But each has its own particular part to play in the drama of life, each has its own special province. The lesser can never equa! the greater. No drama was ever successful where a minor character tried to hog the spotlig of the star. It, therefore, bek es the motion picture to perfect a micable al- liance with the imate thea- ter, that both may follow the lines of honest ~ competition, abandoning cut-throat methods, each pursuing the even tenor of its honorable way to the success that will surely crown the efforts of both in the end. Thus it help, if only a mite, in solving the greater and more serious problem which dazes this reckless old world at this particular mo- | ment. "HE current week opens in Washington with the theater at its best. In the National we find the immortal of the play- wrights presented by drtists who have attained the heights in their chosen art, practiced and secure. Otis Skinner brings, with an €X- | perience ripe in theatrical wis- dom, a distinguished line of char- acterizations that were famous in the day of their creation. Maude Adams, Sir James M. Barrie’s own | bright, particula; star, who will | ever be cherished as that exquisite sprite and symbol of eternal youth, modestly emerges from her long retirement to present Shake- speare’s embodiment of feminine wisdom. The play. one of the fa- vorite classics of the stage, ranges tragic and tful s ! 4 may | DIX TH'S MARILYN MILLER oris SKINNER and. MAUDE ADAMS *THE MERCHANT, OF VENICE" NATHONAL CORNELIA 9715 SKINNER Swives ofF Kenay wm NATIONAL = SUNDAV-MONOAY SHER MAJESTY LOVEX EARLE Melody and Mourning. JFROM the National Theater comes the announcement of another “dark week,” with the theater open, but no attraction inside, starting next Sun- day. For the week that follows, however, starting December 28, will come “Alice in Wonderland"—the picture which s to be attracting wide juvenile at- tention, while enlightening some of the older talent,, followed for the week be- ginning January 4, by the Cosmopolitan Grand Opera Co., with a repertory in- | cluding “Rigoletto,” “II Trovatore,” | “Romeo and Juliet” ~“Hansel and | Gretel,” “Pagliacci” “Faust” and | “Carmen.” 'There will be performances | every week evening, at two matinees and a double bill on two occasions Maestro Jacques Samossoud will con- duct, with an_orchestra of 35 and a | ballet of 40. The names of the prin- cipals have not vet been announced “Mourning Becomes Elcctra,” Eugene | O'Neill's famous trilogy, will be the sur- prise offering for the week starting Jan- | uary 11. While Washington was hope- | ful of seeing this foremost production cf the dramatic year some time, yet few, if | any, dared believe it possible during the | current season | Cornelia Otis Skinner. (CORNELIA OTIS SKINNER, daugh- | | ter of Otis Skinner, is not un-| familiar to Washington audiences | What is new, however, is a work of her | own_authorship, “The Wives of Henry | VIIL” which she will present at the | National Theater | Tall, slender, graceful and possessed | of rare charm, Miss Skinner belongs to that fortunate class of mortals who, through the trial and error method and | their own strong discover their proper life Her | aptitude ~for s perform- ances was first revealed to her intimate friends during her“school years, for even as a child, she delighted ‘in mimicking the people who appealed to her sense of humor | Graduated from the Baldwin School at Bryn Mawr and from Bryn Mawr | College, she went to Paris, whe re her | professors were Dehelly of the Comedie | | Francaise and Jean Herve, another | | socletaire of the Comedie. For modern | stage acting, she trained under Jacques Copeau at the Theater du Vieux | Colombier In this country Miss Skinner has had stage experience both in New York and on the road. Working with text of her own composition and crawing inspira- | tion not only from the portraits of Henry'se wives by Holbein, but also from | numerous historical records, Miss Skin- | ner unfolds in sequence the troubleq passions and problems of Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isa- | | bella; Anne Boleyn, the ill-fated mother | of Elizabeth; Jane Seymour, mother of Edward VI, Anne of Cleves, Henry's | peasant hausfrau from Rhine | Katheryn Howard, equally ill-fated s Anne Boleyn, if less known to general | fame, and Katherine Parr, who survived | | the much-married monarch, | =—— | contrast with the Russian concep- | tion of spectacle in theatric beau- |ty and merriment, whase lighter |-and at times bizarre, charm |hanced by the genial jovig) | the Ineomparable Balieff g Shubert-Belasco Theater, |one must be hard to please who | cannot find & choice in what the | | theater at its best has tg rat | | y " 5 to offer l‘L is en- | ity of | t the | Surely | | American like Cornelia Otis Skinner is BALIEFFS* CHAUVE SOURIS? BELASCO Stage and Screen Attractions This Week NATIONAL—"“The Wives of Henry VIIL.” This evening and to- morrow evening. “The Merchant of Venice.” Opens Tues- day evening. i . BELASCO-—Balieff’s “Chauve Souris.” Opens tomorrow evening. GAYETY—"“Ginger Girls” (burlesque). This afternoon and eve- ning. _ ON THE SCREEN. -K-O KEITH'S—"“Secret Service.” This afternoon and evening. ReE “Her Majesty Love.” This afternoon and evening, FOX—“Good Sport.” This afternoon and evening, PALACE—“Corsair.” This afternoon and evening. RIALTO—"Nice Women.” This afternoon and evening. METROPOLITAN—“The Age for Love.” This afternoon and ing. mL%"f{rfiggf“The Big Parade.” This afternoon and evening, A New ldea. GTN the face of & despondent drama, a struggling stage and a threat- ened theater,” says Oliver M. Sayler, the author, “it s heartening to encounter a new idea in this bedeviled art, and par- ticularly so when a thoroughly native Sketches.” It is not actual theater. ¥n other words, it is so much richer, so | much more complex, so much more gripping in its ability to hold an audi- ence by means of dramatic sequences and climax, than were her “Character Sketches,” that it deserves a classifica- tion of its own. Nor is it theater, as I have said. It isn't fully theater in the | most exacting sense, stmply for ‘the reason that it requives only the artist's |own versatile self, aided by a few cos- tumes—without stage settings, without the ajd of other actors. “Just what we are going to call this new form of dramatic expression is go- ing to be a pretty problem for the mak- ers and molders. of our language. Somewhere along the long way from the old-fashioned monologues to the eternal theater, this young artist, in the effort to give full expression to the Individual talent which she possesses, has discov- ered a habitable resting place. I pre- the one to whom wg are beholden for the idea. 9 “The title by which Miss Skinner’s new idea will reach the Washington public tonight and tomorrow night l: Theater is “The Wives of g‘:nr‘;’“\'lolx;?,l” But the title isn't the idea; it scarcely gives a hint of the idea. Like all ideas when they Sen new, Miss Skinner's isn't so casy to de~ fine. Definitions, like histery, w\dx!nle after the fact; and, the newer the da which they seek to crystalize in words, the more difficult it is to find & common | dict that she will.find it habitable not and parallel ground within familar hu- | only for herself, devoting the mifts of man experience by which tc measure | her imagination to the creation in this likeness and_difference. X oasis of a many-chambered dwelling. “T like to think of Miss Skinner's new | but also that she will find others stop- : It is not ber PINg off at her oasis to butld for them. LINDA WATKINS and JOHN BOLES *GOOD SPORT” o x BILLIE DO $THE AGE FOR. VE Lovi METROPOL ITAN SIDNEY FOX SNICE woMEN® R/ALTO Belasco Christmas Week. CHRISTMAS week at the Shubert- Belasco Theater, as at the Na- tional; will be a week off for all hands, 80 far as drama presentation is con- cerned, unless, a5 Manager Taylor says, something happens in the meanwhile, for up to the present writing no at- traction has been billed from the New York offices to the National Capital for that period. December 28, however, will find things looking up again, with “The Jewel Rob- bery” as the attraction and with Basil Sidney and Mary Ellis as its stars. For the week starting January 4 the Guth- rie McClintic Offices announce that Dan Totheroh’s new play, “Distant Drums,” with Pauline Lord as its star, will be sent to the Shubert-Belasco for its first time on any stage, prior o its New York opening, January 11. “Blossom Time” also is said to be headed in this direction en route from Chicago. but no specific time has yet been set for its arrival. “The Student Prince,” which was expected the week | of January 3, has been canceled so far s Washington is concerned. New Balieff Star. (GEORGE HAYES was born in Lon- don and made his first appearance | on the stage as Osric in “Hamiet" with Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, appear- ing in the same role in this country | the following year, and in “The Passing | | of the Third Floor Back.” His next engagement, with Sir Herbert Tree, again brought him to our shores, Where I'he has remained for three years. Me was seen here in “The Merchant of Venice,” “The Merry Wives of Wind- sor’ and “An Ideal Husband.” In 1919, in London, he appeared in I/Adglon,” “The Doctor's Dilemma,” “She Stoops to Conquer,” “Marriage by liments,” “Titus' _Andronicus,” hello,” “Coriolanus,” “Prisoners of War” and “The Beaux' Stratagem.” In 1928 he returned to,this country with the Stratford-on-Afon Festival Co. from the Shakespeare Memorial Theater, playing _Shylock, Hamlet, Henry 1V, Apemantus in “Timon of Athens” and Richard IIL. One of his successful roles in London was Paul I in Merezhkovsky's “The Death of Paul 1" He now heads the cast in Balieff’s “The Queen of Spades. One of the Pictures. [ JOWARD HUGHES' widely pro- claimed picture, “The Age for Love,” which marks the return to the| scréen of Billie Dove, is now at Warner . Metropolitan. Br“""fleMAgep;)or Love” is heralded as one of the great productions of the ar. It is said to reveal a new Billle nge, in the finest performance of her career, and to have been more than a year in the preparation before it was filmed with extravagance and finesse. It is described as an ultra-modern, so- phisticated romance drama of love and marriage, based on the novel by Ernest Pascal, with dialogue by Robert E. Sherwood, famous movie critic and t, It & & United Anuk IS ’ / CHESTER MORRIS and THELMA TODD *CORSAIR "~ PALACE “Averagé Movie ‘Player Is Not a Moron!” Says One Producing Company S Paramount Takes Issue With College Professor and Seeks to Prove Him Wrond With List of Stars Who Received Diplomas. By E. de S. Melcher, R. JOHN FREDERICK DASHIELL, University of North Carolina psycholo- gist, has not ‘endeared himself to the movie industry. His assertion th7, the average motion picture p/yer is amoron, is said to have saised a ‘whooping spark of anger. The rage which has followed this acid assertion has kindled unprintable words, and the movie forces have hurled themselves into angry groups and kuttered dire verbal epistles at the unjust maligning of members of | their profession. Paramount, especially, has not let this insult go by unnoticed. It has issued a polite refutal to such a preposterous charge. Shak- ing its finger at the veteran DpSy- chologist, who is said to have delved deep into the cinema players’ gray matter, it claims that not only is the average pic- ture player not a moron, but that “a survey shows that many of filmdom’s leading personalities are former collegians.” This, of course, is a grand boost for the colleges. To imply that the higher homes of learning are bare of the subintelligentsia is a happy motto for them. “The University of Z, where there are no morons,” should increase reg- istrations by not only leaps, but bounds. If, for instance, by get- ting into one of these institu- tions we could prove to ourselves and to our family that we are not below the level of possibility then the increases of happiness should be very large, indeed. Not content with this, Para- mount issues a list of those of its stars who evidently do not be- long to the shameful class of which the professor speaks. We find, for instance, that 21 players at these studios have walked out with some kind of sheepskin. The males seem to be less moronic than the females, the latter being represented by but 6. Still, Para- mount is very proud of its quota and flings it handsomely at Prof, Dashiell’s unfortunate assertion. Here are the 21 brain children: Frances Dee, who spent two years at the University of Chicago; Dorothy Tree, a co-ed at Cornell: Frances Moffett attended both Goucher College in Baltimore and George Washington University, right here; Miriam Hopkins studied at Syracuse University, Judith Wood took an art course at Skidmore College in Saratoga, Marjorie Gateson was a student at Packer Collegiate Institute, in Brooklyn; Frederic Marsh won his “W” at Wisconsin and was presi- dent of the senior class (he’ll set- tle with any one who says he’s a moron); Gary Cooper studied at Grinell College, in Iowa; Regis Toomey received his degree from Pittsburgh University, Charles Buddy Rogers was a junior in journalism at Kansas, both Charles Starrett and Allen Vin- cent came straight from the chilly slopes of Dartmouth, Phil- lips Holmes attended Princeton (remember him as the “leading lady” of the Princeton Triangle Show?); Irving Pichel was a “47 Workshop” student at Harvard, Btanoed freshman year at St. Thomas be- fore the war called him, George Bancroft tried a year at Annap- olis, George Barbier studied for the ministry at Crozier Seminary, Stuart Erwin went to the Univer- sity of California for one year, Russ Clark holds a degree from Illinois, and of the foreign college men, Clive Brook is an alumnus of Dulwick University, in Eng- land, and Paul Lukas attended the University of Budapest, * k X X "THE fact that Paramount should be able to refute so wicked an assertion so boldly is a tribute to its industry. But, alas, the names of those who have been left off indicate that, perhaps, some of its stellar players are not what we think they are, Where, for instance, is Claudette | Colbert, Maurice Chevalier or the | Four Marx Brothers? Does their negligence in not having attended Goucher College or Dulwick Uni- versity suggest that they couldn’t possibly compete, say in a bridge game, with those whose alma mater shingle sleeps beside them? | Why, for instance, doesn’t Para- |mount come forward with a bold, {bald face and exonerate these major players of the stigma which Prof. Dashiell has cast on them? We wager, in fact, that the Four Marx Brothers would be able to raise the standard of learning in any college, and so frighten the professor by their brain power that he might have to turn screen star to prove him- self right. Another paragraph in this Par- amount statement calls attention to the fact that this “compilation is made on the established basis that one with a moron’s men- tality cannot suceessfully com- plete a high school education.” This is a highly comforting thought, since we have often had doubts about it. There were times, in fact, when we wondered if even the colleges were playing fair, However, the whole ques~ tion has been cleared up. “Holly- wood statistics refute the profes- sor's moron charge” is the good word. Hollywood has no morons. Have you, seriously, ever doubted that? * %k * ¥ SOME of the good news of the week is that Paramount has at last snapped up the services of that excellent young actor, Franchot Tone (seen here in “Pagan Lady” and “Green Grow the Lilacs”), and will be forth- with featured in “The Wiser Sex,” with Claudette Colbert. Sylvia Sidney (this department’s weak- ness), will appear with Chestey Morris in “The Miracle Man”} Roland Brown will direct John Barrymore's new picture for R-K-O, “Btate’s Attorney ”; James Cagney’s new film will be “The Roar of the Crowd”; “Frankenstein” is a roaring suc- cess in New York, Jim Lundy's housewarming broke all records, Maxine Doyle’s hair isn't really white, and what do you think of seeing “Ben Hur” all over again 4 % Rt RO e - X