The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 35

TREND: A SECTION OF THE BROOKLYN EAGLE, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1939 'Hamlet a Play by Frederick Lonsdale, and a Cole Porter Musical Arriving Buf Is It Real? Playthings Sidney Kingsley Says His The World We Make' Isn't Realistic at All, Simply Suggesting Reality by Artificial Means By BERNARD SIMON When Sidney Kingsley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "Men in White," was produced in London some fiva years ago, a number of dramatic critics there snread a report in their papers that iodoform was sprayed out over the auditorium at each performance during the famous operating room swne. point, Margo runs her finger over a table in the immortal gesture of housewives and seems to find that the table is thick with dust. That table is never dusty, but when she makes her audience think it is, s'le has achieved the highest aim of vc ling to make audiences believe In m'Vta nVia Hnai AnI if ihmu AA Maxwell Anderson and Paul Muni Make 'Key Largo' Very Special Ethel Barrymore Has Fun Paul Osborn's Latest By ARTHUR POLLOCK Maxwell Anderson has now in "Key Largo" a play about a man who runs away from living because he has convinced himself that the living can make life no better and avolds'dylng when the opportunity offers for no good reason save that at the moment there no good reason for dying. No doubt this is because he is not quite convinced and wants to stlclc around in the hope that he will be. He is an intelligent man, which is why he sidesteps death that will, as he sees It, do no good of any sort whatever and which is also why he believes living will do no good either He is a man who plays with ideas.

It happens in the play at the Ethel Barrymore Theater that he keeps himself alive, by what others call cowardice, long enough to fina a reason for living, whereupon he is happy to die suddenly, since there is also then a reason for dying. It makes a very fine play. And Paul Muni acta the man in it with great sensl-tlveress. Perhaps Mr. Muni is a little too determined to act him sentl-tlvely and acts him therefore a little temely.

Perhaps Mr. Anderson Is too willing to let nuances tell his story and his play therefore turns out to be too delicate for the vicinity of Broadway. I don't know. I know that I myself have seldom found listening quite so satisfying. The man's confusion begins in Spain.

He is one of those men who went there to fight because he thought that all that is best in life was being fought for there by Uie Loyalists, and there he got mixed up. Mr. Anderson does not ay tliat anything happened to his guts, only that he reached a point where he believed that the caus was lost and that it served no further purpose to die when nothing could be saved. The friends he had led to Spain did not agree with him and died while he walked out They were sure that In dying they kept alive the spirit. That was in the prologue and It seemed to me that Mr.

Anderson himself was well mixed up at that point. Having died when his friends did not, the man came back home and sought out the families of his friends hoping that they would say a word or two to help him to live more happily with himself. With the father and the sister of one friend he spends the rest of the play and straightens himself out, comes to the end of his casuistry. His mind emerges even under circumstances typical1 of the state of things today, for he has to do with gangsters and their victims and their lawlessness, which seems to rule the world. Once more he dodges dying, at the muzzles of a gangster's gun this time, because he sees no sense in killing to call a bluff.

And then he dies because he is convinced by the words of a man who believes that life will never be better worth dying for unless we help the growth of man by believing strongly enough in his capacity for growth to be willing to die foi the belief. Mr. Anderson talks out this man's problem, punctuating the flow of rich and meaningful words with moments of the most lucid drama. And Mr. Muni plays the man as lucidly as if his mind were adventuring in a dream.

His is the finest acting this season has brought. Fun for Miss Barrymore Ethel Barrymore is making a frolic of a play called "Farm of Three Echoes" at the Cort Theater. She plays a wilful old lady of 97 and has as much fun with her role as a child with a lolly-pop, rolling her lines around her tongue, licking her lips over them. Sometimes she loading a gun to shoot any one who tries to steal the coffin she has cherished for 39 years, sometimes she is forecasting the imminent arrival of Satan, sometimes she is babbling about the eight sons whose lives she gave in the Boer War and always she is sending "Farm of Three Echoes" over the jumps like the most expert of Jockeys. It is a cock-eyed play, mixture of fright and farce, with the young male product of three generations of dour South African pioneers afraid of the blood that runs in his veins and afraid at the same time of an outlandish young Broadway lady invented by the author to come to his farm and seduce him.

Miss Barrymore has been vacationing for two seasons now in the easy roles of ancients. It will soon be time for her to come back to work and be her age. Poor Comical Folks Paul Osborn, who wrote "On Borrowed Time" two seasons back, has picked himself a hard Job In his new comedy, "Mornings at Seven," recent arrival at the Longacre Theater. He has chosen to write about a set of characters all but two of whom are in their fifties or their sixties and to picture them as comic and pathetic at the same time. Playwrights out to make money seldom go about making it in this way.

Mr. Osborn evidently likes his oldtfolks. His comedy has charm, a good deal of truth, exhibits a nice skill in understatements, It is one of the pleasanter of the recent play, but not likely to be lucky. Kingsley regarded this illusion as the highest compliment ever paid to his play. For, of course, no such spraying took place; the critics and others who took up the legend had gained such an intensely authentic impression of the performance if that scene that they imagined they smelled an operating room odor that did not exist.

Now that Kingsley has Just had his newest play presented, the piece called "The World We Make" at the Guild Theater, based on Millen Brand's novel, "The Outward Room," i.e has reason to chuckle to him-relf at another success of his stage magic. For on Us opening two weeks ago, "The World We Make" was greeted with the comment that its staging involved a realism so overwhelming that it compared with the kind of eye-striking thing David Belasco had used to be famous for. To Kingsley this has come as a high tribute to his play, not because he was trying to follow Belasco's style of minute photographic imitation of real life, but because it clearly showed that his play had created an enormously intense sense of reality through the fullest use of theatrical craftsmanship. In the Belasco sense, "The World Make" is not realistic at all, but impressionistic. The first scene, for example, is laid in a doctor's office in a modern American sanitarium.

To give the impression of sterilized cleanliness of such a place, the setting gleams with whiteness. But inasmuch as the walls of the office are so translucent as to let the audience see figures of actors silhouetted through them, the setting could hardly be called realistic. Perhaps in Japan, where the houses are sometimes built of paper panels, this office might be considered a reproduction of actuality, but nowhere else. The second scene of "The World We Make" is supposed to represent a laundry in full operation, and admittedly it is so filled with mangles, washtubs, piles of linen in various stages of cleansing, steam pipes, busy workers and even occasional wisps of steam vapor, that when the curtain rises on this setting It is invariably applauded by audiences. Like the famous pier-head setting of Kingsley's previous play, "Dead End," i his laundry scene will probably become one of the most talked about phenomena of the current theatrical season.

But fo all its apparent realism, the impression it gives audiences of being a real laundry (to which "one could readily feel safe in sending one's shirt," as one critic remarked) it actually anything but a reproduction of even one small corner of a real laundry. Several owners of small laundries have already attended tht show and written Kings-ley letters telling him that the scene Is true to no laundry that ever existed on land or sea. Where, these real laundrymen demand, was there ever a laundry which had in one room or even in adjacent rooms, Its mangles, its washing tubs, Its jewing department, its receiving de partment? And that was no real mangle up there on the stage, or a real cylindrical tub. It was all fake, fake, fake, they said. Which, of course, is as it should be.

since it Is not the function of the theater to reproduce any locale Maurice Ivans who brings hit (and back lo town tomorrow evening for Thaatar. limited sngagtmant at the 44th Mr. Evans Brings Back 'Hamlet' Shakospaare's) fiill-langth "Hamlet" Straet rang up on Elsinore at 6:30, and the audience was given an hour's intermission for dinner. This year patrons will have an opportunity to eat an early dinner at home, for the curtain will not rise until 7:30, but there wil'. be no dinner intermission.

This plan has been employed with The New Plays great success for the past two months while "Hamlet" has been playing larger Eastern cities. Not since "Strange Interlude" toured the country a decade ago had audiences outside of New York been asked to assimilate such a large helping of drama at one time, and not believe it, the rest of the play, Involving Mai go's getting down on her knees with a brush and pail of water to scrub the floor and finding joy and a solution of her problems In keeping the flat clean, would seem unmotivated. But as strict "realism, that tenement flat in "The World We Make" enough to make David Belasco writhe in his grave. For one thing, the setting has no ceiling. Would Beiasco ever have been guilty of putting a room on the stage without a ceiling? Never I In real life rooms have ceilings, and Belasco copied life.

But in the setting for the Kingsley play the audience sees not a ceiling but the fire escapes and windows of neighboring tenement houses in a way that could never be dona in real life. The fact is that, as has been clearly evident in "Men in White," "Dead End" and now in "The World We Make," Sidney Kingsley does not attempt to be true to life, but only true to the theater. To Kingsley, every play ought to be thoroughly theatrical, or it shouldn't be produced in a theater. By being "theatrical" he means that it ought not to be a reproduction of actual life, which can never be as dramatic as people can imagine it and want to see it, but it should be an exaggeration of real Life, an intensification but not a distortion. To Kingsley life-like realty in the theater is dull, not pointed up, not Interpreted.

What the audience really pays its money for Is not to see what they can see every day free with their own eyes, but what skilled artists and craftsmen of the theater have been able to do in heightening the Intensity of life, in giving it a sense of form with a beginning, a middle, a climax, an end. Without this artificial treatment, plain photographic realism in the theater, Kingsley believes, "Is like a sneeze that doesn't come off." The theater, he says, should not be life-'lke, bui must give its audience a sense of "life plus." In illustration of what he means by this, Kingsley tells the story of wo women in an art gallery standing before an impressionistic painting of a horse. One woman complained that the artist obviously couldn't draw better than a child, that it distorted the horse dreadfully, making his neck too thin, some of his legs longer than others, and so on. But the other woman said that, while all her companion said wfs true about the distortions of the painting, from a photographic point of view, she got a greater sense of "horslness," so to speak, than If she had been looking at a real horse himself. To get at the very essense of characters, ideas, locales and action is what Kingsley tries to do as a playwright.

To do so he is not ashamed to utilize every resource of the theater all Its crafts of lighting, costuming, scene-designing. acting, direction. As was the case with "Dead End," and "Men in White," so with his new play, "The World We Make," the charge is 1. lU- Vtr, nn- he does to his play manuscript. Kingsley is never ruffled by that criticism.

He deliberately writes plays that give great scope to all other craftsmen of the theater. He writes parts that actors can get their teeth into, he demands settings that give scene designers a glorious chancs to get away from the tire some old living rooms, drawing rooms and dining rooms of most plays. In his mind a play that did not depend partially on acting and the scenery is not a play at all, but a novei that happens to be written in ths form of dialogue. Kingsley thinks that the greatest triumph of "The World We Make- over the weekend. This Time Play Begins at 7:30 With No Dinner Hour the O'Neill drama was done with a recess for dinner.

How did the road take to the full-length The box of flee figures tell the story. The aver age gross during the eight-week tour was $19,000 a week, which would indicate that audiences on the road have a collective theatrical taste not too dissimilar to that of the New York playgoer. At the end of the five-week engagement at the 44th Street Theater, Mr. Evans will again take to the road. This time he will go directly to the Coast.

Touring the larger cities of the Southwest and the Coast may occupy him for the remainder of the current theatrical season. following his return engagement in "Hamlet" the actors next vehicle here will be "The Little Lover." a play based on the life of St. Francis of Assist, by Laurence Housman, author of "Victoria Reglna." "The Little Lover" is not expected until the Fall of 1940. At 44th Street Theater' Opens Five-Week Engagement Tomorrow Maurice Evans returns to New York tomorrow night and once again playgoers will have a chance possibly their last to see his production of "Hamlet" in its entirety, the same complete rendition which played to 96 capacity audiences at the St: James last season and, in its final week, to dozens of standees each night, until it was taken off the boards to make room for Henry IV." This time the "Hamlet" engagement will be even more limited, five weeks having been alloted. And this season's engagement will be at the 44th Street Theater, instead of the neighboring St.

James. And the Melancholy Dane will play a somewhat different performance schedule during the forthcoming engagement. Once Mr, Evans had decided to produce the full-length "Hamlet" it soon became apparent that such an enterprise would not easily be confined to the conventional performance time of the modern three-act drama. Last season the curtain Monday "Hamlet," Maurice Eyans' production of the play complete, with Mr. Evans in the title role.

At the 44th St. Theater. Mady Chris-tians, Henry Edwards, Katherlne Locke in the cast. Tuesday "Foreigners," a new play by Frederick Lonsdale. Belasco Theater.

Richard Ainley and Martha Scott head the cast. Presented by the Shuberts and Arch Selwyn. Wednesday "DuBarry Was a Lady," musical comedy with songs by Cole Porter. 46th Street Theater. Presented by B.

Q. De Sylva. Ethel Merman, Bert Lahr and Betty Grable head the cast. Friday "The Woman Brown," a plsy by Dorothy Cummings, at the Biltmore Theater. Colin Kelth-Jonnston, Franciska Gaal, Adrienne Ames and Cecil Humphreys play leading roles.

Meet Richard Ainley He Is Henry Ainsley's Son and Will Be Seen Tuesday Evening in Frederick Lonsdale's New Play, 'Foreigners' young player was brought to America by Charles Frohman to play opposite Maude Adams In "The Pretty Sister of Jose," which opened at the Empire on Nov. 10, 1903. Veteran playgoers remember the occasion vividly, and Ainley senior's later appearance that season with Miss Adams in Barries "The Little Minister. Richard Ainley's mother was. an American girl of the well-known Pennsylvania Riddle family, born and raised in late Victorian seclusion in Erie, about 65 years ago.

As Baroness von Hutten, she is today a distinguished novelist and lecturer, known to thh land for such popular novels as "Pam," "Happy House" and photographically and realistically but to give a sense of that locale by. more to the production that is, to artificial (I e. fake) means. The the acting, beautiful scenery, light-measure of theatrical success is to ing, costumes, direction, be found in whether the artificial scenery of painted canvas and artificial props of cardboard make the audience think the whole thing is real. Similarly the third setting of the.

play, representing a two-room tene- ment Hat and the hallway leading' to It, was described as being so realistic that the dirt lay thick on it and even cockroaches were seen crawling about. That, of course, was an illusion just like the one about iodoform in "Men in White," or the brackish smell of the tides that some people believed they had smeUed when watching Kingsley's characters on the East River pier Richard Ainley, one of the foremost young actors of the London stage, who makes his American debut in the leading role of Frederick Lonsdale's new play, "Foreigners," coming to the Belasco Theater next Tuesday, has a number of Interesting connections with this land, although It happens to be the tall, handsome lad's first trip to these shores. Through recent appearances on the London stage with John Gielgud through the long run of "Richard of Bordeaux" and several productions of with Sir Cedrlc Hard-wlcke and Ralph Richardson at Malvern festivals; and last season with Richardson and Edna Best in J. B. Priestley's "Johnson Over Jordan," the young Britisher's name has become one to be reckoned with.

His latest of several English films was Elisabeth Bergner's last starring vehicle, "Stolen Life." In the Berg-ner film version of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" Richard' Ainley played the lovelorn Sylvius, the shepherd. This was his only ap pearance In the same production 4 with his famous Shakespearean actor-father, Henry Ainley, who was the Banished Duke. Henry Ainley Is easily recalled by American playgoers. His career dates back to a London debut in "Henry In 1900. He trouped with Oeorge Alexander and Sir Frank Benson's companies before first coming to attention as Paolo In the original production of "Paolo and Francesca" in 1902.

The year following the rising "What Happened Was This." She Is currently engaged on a volume of memoirs about an unusually colorful life. Young Ainley's maternal grandfather seems to have been rather a remarkable man, too. A great amateur shot, he once took on the re doubtable Col. William Cody (Buf falo Bill) at a clay-pigeon shoot, and trimmed him handsomely. Later he lost a leg as a result of a duck-shooting accident, but could swim and skate with enough efficiency to teach his daughter.

Richard Ainley was born In Middlesex, England, in a beautiful house In the middle of a forest. He spent his youth with his mother on lecture tours of the Continent and acquired a glib knowledge of German, French and Italian. His famous father went on to theatrical glory In England, but his son did not take to the theater until the age of 18. in "Dead End." for the stagehands! i tha: many people were so per-at tha Guild take pride in keeping uaded by its theatrical devices that their stage and its sets as clean as they thought they were seeing the if the sets represented a royal1 nd calltd 11 pjj when it was all an Illusion. But the audience is supposed to think the tenement flat Is dirty at I iddlSn Operetta first, and when they do think so it "Mem Shtetel Yasse." Goldberg really means that they have for- and Jacobs' Yiddish musical pro-sotten that Margo is merely acting duction.

will begin its final week her central role in the play and with the last five performances at of what she is doing. For at Bert Lahr, Ethtl Marman and Batty Grabla in the now Cole Patter muiicol comedy, "DuBarry Wat a lody," which B. G. Da Sylva prolan Wednesday araning at the 46th Street Trustor..