The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 51

TREND ItCTION I Of THI BROOKLYN lAGtl SUNDAY, APRIL 21, 1940 Brooklyn Gives a PLAYTHINGS Teacher to Stage Arnold Moss of 'The Fifth Column' Was Born Here, Taught at Brooklyn College company was Stella Reynolds, now Mrs. Arnold Moss. There he acted many roles and It was while with the Le Gallienne company that he first became interested in radio. Today he is one of the outstanding radio performers over the major networks, and currently is to be heard in "Landmarks of Radio Drama," an experimental radio theater. Scholar, professor, Phi Bet Kappa and only 50 pages short of a PhJ5.

on 18th century French does that sound like a description of an acto to you? Jone the less it is, and the actor is no other than Arnold Mass, featured in the new Ernest Hemingway drama "The Fifth Column" at the Alvin Theater which tomorrow, April 22, will take up new residence at the Broadhurst Theater. And of especial interest, Mr. Moss, the unusual and unmossllke actor in question, is a native of Brooklyn who taught at Brooklyn College In fact a man who has lived in Brooklyn all but a few of his exciting years on stage and radio. Arnold Moss granted an interview in his dressing room at the Alvin He was about to go on stage in character of the inquisitorial Spanish Loyalist colonel the relentless leader of the counter-espionage group whfl seek to ferret out the treacherous members of the Fifth Column in Madrid. "I don't know how I happened to develop such a strange subject to major in as 18th century French.

Somehow, it fascinated me. I specialized, because of my interest in drama in the theater of 18th century France, particularly in Diderot. Result was that I wrote a "I'd like to say a good word for the radio," he commented. "It has become a boon to actors. In fact, "The Fifth Column" is the first play I've been in since 1631, largely because I am a particular type and fine Jobs are scarce for that reason on the legitimate stage.

But radio is a question of voice, and I have played a range of roles on the air that would stagger you if I enumerated all of them." Moss digressed a moment to explain his passion for Latin and early French. "I was devoted, from my early college days, to the poetry of Francois Villon. There is only one way really to enjoy the purity of expression and the beauty of line of this famous ballad singer and that is to be able to read and understand him in his own language, the language of old Paris. I found my Latin a tremendous advantage." Moss has written one play and It was produced or rather he adapted a play from the French. This was "Martine," written by Jean Jacques Bernard.

In 1931 he was In Jed Harris' production of "Wonder Boy." For those who may be regularly at the dials, those shows on which Arnold Moss is constantly heard are the Kate Smith show, Grand Central Station and Gang Busters. Norman Corwin and Arch Oboler have written plays for the radio especially for him and both are acknowledged as topflight writers. He thesis and to this day it stands only 50 pages short of giving me a Ph.D. I became an M. A.

for the thesis and some day I'm going to Note on a Serious Mistake Made Herein Last Sunday Anent Katharine Cornell's Coming 'Medicine Show' a Real Bargain Br ARTHUR POLLOCK Thl column made a grave error last Sunday and ought to be tpoken to about it. It was set down herein that Katharine Cornell la coming to the Majestic Theater in Brooklyn on May 11. That Is false, thoroughly false. Katharine Cornell is coming to the Majestic Theater In 8. N.

Behrman's comedy, "No Time for Comedy," precisely on the evening of May 7. That is a Tuesday evening. 6he is not coming to the Majestic Theater in Brooklyn in S. N. Behrman's comedy, "No Time for Comedy," on Monday evening, May 6, because she is playing in Provincetown on that evening, a date scheduled long in advance.

And the house in Provincetown is already completely sold out. So you had better run to the box office of the Majestic Theater right away or see what may happen to you. Don't thinlc you can run up to Provincetown on Monday and catch her there. A woman in 66th Manhattan, called up the Majestic the other day and ordered seats for every performance Miss Cornell is to play here. That gives you an idea.

It la going to be a downright shame if every seat in the house for the whoje week is taken by aliens, and Brooklynltes are crowded right off their own shores. This Is a Warning. And don't, If you wait too long, blame it on the Eagle, simply because last Sunday's Eagle made a mistake and said Miss Cornell was coming to the Majestic Theater in Brooklyn in S. N. Behrman'a comedy, "No Time for Comedy," on the 11th of May.

Forget that. Let the past bury its dead. Conclusive Proof The fact is that when this column wrote this column last week It was at home and had allowed the exact date of Miss Cornell's coming, as printed accurately in the Eagle of the day before, to alip its memory. Consequently this column was forced to consult another Journal less exact, a Journal which specified May 11 as the date of the event an inexcusable error. You can easily see, then that the fact that this column had it wrong last Sunday is conclusive proof that if you want correct in forma ton you will find it only in the columns of the Eagle.

Certainly this column Itself personally will never trust another column again. Perhaps that is enough for today on this particular topic. Let us sum up, however. Katharine Cornell is coming to the Majestic Theater in Brooklyn in S. N.

Behrman's "No Time for Comedy" on the evening of Tuesday, May 7, to remain for the rest of the week. Do not believe any carelessly put together sheet that tells you otherwise. Cheap at Any Price Do not believe, either, that because "Medicine Show," the new play at the New Yorker Theater, does not cost $3.30 or more a seat It is not a stirring play. When a producer charges the public only from 85 cents to $1.65 that is not necessarily a sin. To be sure, often before this producers have offered plays at lower than customary prices and more often than not it has been sinful.

Many have said from time to time for years that it ought to be possible to present plays at moderate prices. Almost none of those who have said so have ever had sufficiently the courage of their convictions actually to try the experiment. When a play, having got all It could at one theater at a good price, moves to another house and cuts lta prices it seldom does good business. People think there must be something the matter with it. Even when there isn't, which is sometimes the case.

And so when a management comes right out and opens a brand new play like "Medicine Show" at moderate prices, a great many of those who hould be glad to save money and see what they like are likely to think they smell something. Battling 'Medicine Show' The very worst that can be said of "Medicine Show" is that it Is an education. Its authors have written a Living Newspaper. They have dramatized facts. They have made facts, numbers, figures, conditions, thrilling.

You do not know until you have seen a play like "Medicine Show" how exciting facts can be, how new and tartllng. Facts have been around for a long time. They are not new. But, adroitly displayed, they can take your breath Most of the best plays of the world have been based on a battle of one sort or another, a clash of contending forces. "Medicine Show" fits the formula perfectly.

It stages a fight between fact and falsity. Maybe you are not alive until you have seen a Living Newspaper like "Medicine Show." Are you sure? write those other pages just to acquire three initials more. Not that it will do me any good." Arnold Moss was born in Flat- bush. His mother and grandmother were born in Brooklyn. Brooklyn has changed much since Mr.

Moss was a youngster going to Boys High School. "Our old neighborhood known as the Stuyvesant District has changed altogether. I dont re has played the romantic lead in "Against the Storm" and "Man- member where grandmother was born. The family name was Jo hattan Mother," both daily serials. He has supported and played leading roles to Ethel Barrymore, Luise Rainer, Alia Nazlmova, Jane Cowl.

Charlie Ruggles, Helen Menken, Glenda Farrell. THESE ARE THE DAY BOYS of "Life With Father," that joily comedy at the Empire Theater. The four red-head sons are Richard Simon and John Drew Devereaux, left and right respectively below, Larry Robinson and Raymond Roe, left to Getting back to Hemingway, Mass right at the top. had this to say: Escape to Present "When I was there the story went that Ernest Hemingway had I two silver ribs, at least one of which was acquired as the result of his flirtation with the bull ring. Hemingway writes realistically, Just as in "The Fifth You project of writing a romantic play seemed to him about as remote as a revival of the Arthurian legends.

What then is a playright to do? He can escape to the past. He can write about Queen Elizabeth, Abe Lincoln, Oscar Wilde, John Keats, Marie Antoinette, Benjamin Franklin. He may choose either such Task Is Beh rman decided to Join the migration to the past and had settled myself to an hibernation with the Biographical Dictionaries in order to find an historical character whose career was at once exciting and non-political. There were Don Juan and Casanova but they had been done. Abraham, Adam and Alcibiades all seemed too remote.

To absorb the As alone seemed a young man's job, too formidable to venture at forty-five. Suddenly the obvious seph." After college, where Moss first became associated with amateur dramatics, he Joined the Eva Le Gallienne Apprentice Group. Then came a trip to Europe where he visited France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. In fact, it was in Pamplona during the period when Ernest Hemingway was writing "Death in the Afternoon" that Moss first met Ernest Hemingway at a bullfight, Hemingway, at that time, could hardly have guessed either the civil war or that he would write a play about it in which Arnold 'Moss would play an important role. But Hemingway did coach Mass on the fine points of the ring.

"He probably doesn't know to this minute that the guy he talked to so earnestly that afternoon in Pamplona is myself and that I am his Spanish inquisitor." Returning from Europe in 1929, Moss rejoined Eva Le Gallienne's repertory company. In the same By S. N. BEHRMAN sown with the leaflets of the propa- After tussling dramatically with gandistl Mr. Robert Sherwood a periods as in their turmoil present the problems with which the world year ago got on a boat for a holi- some analogy 10 prC5rm-ua auvci-day in South America.

Forming In sari lsd b' death and his mind, he savs, was "an idea for hlm a conclusion, or such struck me; why not dramatize my a romantic comedv about nothinz Inoas ana aracierS nine know that almost every scene was taken from the gripping events Hemingway witnessed over there during the crisis. He is a very easy guy to get along with and the Spaniards adore him." One amusing thing happened to Moss during his stay in Spain. He arrived in Saragossa and registered at the local hotel. Somehow, someone recognized his name and recalled that he had appeared in several Spanish plays in New York that were done by the Le Gallienne company. He was written up for at all Important or relevant to no Parallel at aU.

rendering the own dilemma, write a comedy on the times." When he reached complete. the impossibility of writing comedy? Buenos Aires, however, he was so I was in this tight spot in the in- I Whether I have demonstrated the assailed bv stories of German pen- terval before I began to write "No thesis or refuted it remains for you, etration in that country that the Time for Comedy." I had just about i the audience, to say! 4k the local Spanish paper, a tremen- dous splash on the front page. There is painfully struggling, the exhausted playwright (and the exhausted audience!) both come to realize that in the theater it is no good presenting the insoluble. In the real world that is to say in the ambiguous realms of politics and business mistakes are forgiven; Mr. Chamberlain may travel with questionable results to Munich and Herr Hitler to the Venusberg, and every one is satisfied so long as the results merely escape disaster, but in the theater you cannot be negative.

You must end on a major note. You must, before the final curtain, bring in a solution, all wrapped up and tidy, or the audience will tell you that you are inconclusive and will signify its discontent by staying away. Perhaps people are justified in expecting more from the artist than from the statesman. In any case they do not allow him the same ui''f was much excitement. A courier brought him an advance proof from the newspaper plant.

But the paper failed to appear on the streets. Moss learned that in Spain, papers sometimes do hot get published every day, at any rate there is no set hour, and oftentimes emerge around 11 or 12 at night. Since he was leaving Saragossa the next evening, he left without ever seeing the story actu I 1S I Mil IffipM I I '-V' -it's: A V'- He is not permitted to ally published. He still has thel IcV proof, however, and occasionally mllnalc ne muu gei some-wonders what sort of a stir it ere- eurtain time. nis bud8pt ated when the paper went to press balanced.

The playwright in a and he was gone. If, Moss won- 1 transition period like this one, one of the swiftest in history, must ders, it ever was published. "This experience of returning to the stage after so many years In i radio, has been a very grand and exciting one," Moss declared. "The very way in which It came about Is 1 nevertheless not be carried away by the stream. And yet as an individual, as a citizen, he is sensitive to the.

tendencies of the moment, profoundly affected by them. The rlilnmma nut hv Trhekoff into the unusual. It just so happened that mo(th hU mrln, in I was ooing a wun Franchot Tone and he mentioned "The Sea Gull" is more acute now than perhaps it has ever been: "I love this lake, these treees, the blue heaven; nature's voice speaks to me and wakes a feeling of passion In my heart, and I am overcome by an uncontrollable desire to write. But I am not only a painter of landscapes, I am a man of the city besides. I love my cpuntry, too, and her people; I feel that, as a writer, it is my duty to speak of their sorrows, of their future; also of science, of the rights of man, and so forth.

So I write on every the play. The next thing I knew I'd been sent for by the directors of the Theater Guild, Theresa Hel-burn and Lawrence Langner. And here I am.H Arnold Moss Is inclined to agree with Ernest Hemingway and his theme for "The Fifth Column." "I say in the play and I feel myself," Moss said, "that if they had stopped the Invaders In Spain there would not have been a war in Europe today. But that is the reason 'The Fifth Column' is a vital Vf rt i 'f i I i 6 subject, and the public hounds me play. Anyone who is aware of what on all sides, sometimes in anger, is eolnn on in the world todav will i and I race and dodge like a fox with a pack of hounds on his trail and finally I come back to the conclusion that all I am fit for is to desrribe landscapes.

But one cannot these days scribe landscapes; they are deeply find in it the answer to many questions. I look forward to the time when radio will do plays as vital and Important as this Hemingway script. And that time Is coming very soon, I hope." WEEK'S EVENTS Tonight Entertainment and ball of the Associated Actors and Artiste of America, at the Waldorf-Astoria. Many stars will appear, including John Barrymore as Hamlet. "Too Many Girls" gives a benefit performance the Imperial Theater for the Stage Relief Fund.

Friday "My Dear Children" gives a special matinee at the Belasco for the Actors' Fund. I i KATHARINE CORNELL She is coming to the Brooklyn Majestic Theater on Tuesday, May BRENDA FORBES, taking a vacation from serious roies, is one of the comic folk of "Two for the Show" revue at the Booth Theater. 1 7, in S. N. Behrman's comedy, "No Time for Comedy.".