The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 25

ijiiiiii 1 1 in ii i minimum i.ui.i.y uiiii nmmmm I nyil I IJl i mmm i i. ml i i i.ui 1 1 i i i.il.-ji i i. 1 1 ,1 hk Wm, dfif A) BQ mm i5 Jt-. acg-. 1 I 5J.x 'V S'-i 3 1 TSsvrC I r-r- About 'Member of the Wedding And Whether It Really Is a Play THERE is a mildly lronlo angle to Carson Meddlers' sensitive ajid moving "The Member of the Wedding," which has comfortably settled down at the Empire Theater to an extended run.

In the one brief scene in which it tries to follow the rules and be a conventional sort of play, by tossing in plot complications and action, it is least successful. Both as "theater" and as a piece of writing, it falters when it has a 12-year-old girl running away from home and when a young Negro, after killing a white man, 1:1. 1 I si SITTING THE "DANCE" OUT Ann Thomas and Biff McGuire are involved in the zany antics of "Dance Me a Song," opening at the Royale Theater this Friday night. Little Shows Recalled in Wiman's 'Dance Me a Song' Fifty-five Broadway produc- succession, came two more sue "MAN" MADE SUSPENSE Dorothy Gish and Don Han-mer hava leading roles in Mel Dinelli's "The Man' a thriller, opening at the Fulton Theater Wednesday. The Man9 Stars Actress Pursued by a Silent Past Dorothy Gish, who plays the leading role In "The cesses, "Women Go On For tlons in 26 years is the impos ing record Dwight Deere Wi ever" (118 performances) and "The Command to Love" (236 performances).

man will have achieved when he, in association with Robert Ross, presents tne new musical revue, "Dance Me a Song," at which Kermit Bloomgarden is bringing to the Fulton Theater The Brady and Wiman partnership was dissolved In 1930, this Thursday, has been an active stage actress since 1927, with only an occasional appearance in films. And yet mere mention and from then until the pres the Royale Theater next Friday of her name or that of her sls ent day, with a few exceptions, evening. in a melodrama called "Her ter, Lillian, invariably brings Wiman has been producing "Dance Me a Song" Is In the on a wave of nostalgia in solo. Two of those exceptions tradition of Mr. Wiman's fa listeners over 30 for the great days of the early silent movies.

First False Step." The Gish girl3 were well known to Ohio audiences long before they ever became, at the ages of 13 and were "Gay Divorcee" and "She Loves Me Not," which he pre mous "Little Shows," which he Tell one of these listeners produced in association with sented in partnership with 14, stars of the silent screen Tom Weatherly back in 1929, that Dorothy Gish recently toured as Mother Day in "Life 1930 and 1931. That is to say, it is a revue with a sophisti Tom Weatherly. Winning Pace Naturally all of his produc With Father," or that she won Very often, in their early tours, they met up with a trouping family named Smith. Later, acting honors on Broadway as cated point of view, peopled Justice Holmes wife in lne when Dorothy was 11 and LI1 tions have not been smash hits, for the most part by up-and Magnificent Yankee," and he will lian 12, their mother took them but his share of successes is far above the average and In coming youngsters and written by the foremost composers and one day to the "flickers" and they became quite excited at cludes the three "Little Shows," It's the Same Mary Hatcher, In 'Big Wheel' and on Stage LITTLE MARY HATCHER, the girl who Is teamed with Mickey Rooney in "The Big Wheel," M-G-M film currently being seen or about to be seen on Loew's screens all over town, is the same Mary Hatcher who is a featured singer In "Texas, L'il Darlin," current Broadway show, and the same Mary Hatcher who started her theatrical career as Laurey in which Is certainly no unobtrusive beginning for any girl. All the same, this is what Mary Hatcher had to say for herself the other afternoon, in her apartment on W.

58th within walking distance of Broadway: "When anybody recognizes me on the street," said Mary, "I'm so thrilled!" Mary is only 20, despite her impressive theatrical past, which Includes two other movies besides "The Big Wheel." She got the "Oklahoma!" job, with a road company, when she was 15. In fact she got a movie contract and the "Oklahoma!" role simultaneously, and didn't get a chance to make a movie for a year, while she was busy in the stage show. "It counted as movie training, I guess, anyway, I was allowed to skip some of the usual schooling," said Mary, from the depths of a big chair, with her slim-legs straight out in front of her, blue scuffs dangling from her bare feet. Mary Hatcher Is the singer-dancer-actress' real name. Her maiden name.

She is married to Herkle Stiles, comedian with Benny Goodman's Band, recently featured on the stage at the Roxy Theater. Herkle Is good looking, tall and slim. "That's where I got the nickname, Herkle short for Hercules, the muscle he explained, drifting into the sitting room on his way out What does a bride the pair have been married Just eight months call a bridegroom named Herkle? "Honey," Mary answered. And what does a bridegroom call a bride named Mary? "Honey," Herkle answered. After Herkle had left, Mary outlined her ambitions: "I want to work with Herkie, in the same show or movie.

I've watched him work impersonally and he'e very talented. Besides, he has wonderful ideas about working. He would be a great help to me in any role." Mary claims to be 5 feet 2 Inches tall, with heels, and she says she weighs 110 pounds. She looks as if there were much less of her than that. Her short hair is thick and brown, with reddish lights, and her eyes are greenish-gray, apt to change color in different lights.

She comes from Tampa, but spent so much time in New York studying singing and dancing, that she had lost her Southern accent long before she auditioned for "The Big Wheel." "I didn't have to learn to forget my accent for the movies, I'd lived In New York so long. But I had to learn it all over again for Texas, L'il Darlin'." She won't forget that "Big Wheel" audition in a hurry. "I went against all the rules. You know when you are lucky, enough to get an audition in Hollywood, you get a new dress and have your hair done and do your best to be simply dazzling. "Well, two days before I was getting married I got a call from my agent He said to come down right away, I was getting auditioned for this movie.

I said, 'I can't I haven't time to get ready. I'm getting married the day after tomorrow." "He said, 'Never mind. Come as you Of course, he didn't know how I really looked: dungarees and a blue shirt, my hair flying around it was long then. I had no makeup, only lipstick. The agent insisted, saying it was dreadfully Important.

To please him I came along not dreaming they'd even let me audition when they saw me. What did I care? I was getting married. "It happened that the role they wanted me to audition for was the role of a girl grease monkey, working around a garage where hot-rods were being serviced for auto races. I looked the part of a grease monkey, all right. They hardly bothered to audition me, seeing how I looked the part." Mary wears one glamorous outfit in "The Big Wheel," but all the rest of the time she is in dungarees, usually with a cap covering her hair.

In spite of this she looks cute and cuddly, as anyhone who has seen the picture has noticed. Mary is a tap dancer who "can fake ballet," and has a soprano voice, with which, she discovered, she can yodel. "In 'Texas Ll'l Darlin' I have to yodel," she explained, "to sing the 'Yodel I had never even tried to yodel, but when I was told to learn, I went ahead and learned. I figure when you have to do something, you might as well get right down to work and do it as well as you can." This willingness to buckle down to hard work, plus talent, is undoubtedly the secret of little Mary Hatcher's swift success. "My mother had a lot to do with it, though," said Mary.

"She's been keeping an eye on me and my career all the time. Mother!" she called. It was only 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and she hadn't been up long. "I was a celebrity at Leon Eddie's Celebrity Night, last night," Bhe said. "I didn't get home until six this morning." noticing one of the Smith girls, stubbornly sigh, "I can still feel the tug at my heart that I got as a kid watching the Gish sisters being battered by the elements and pursued by the villain in "Orphans of the Storm," "The Vinegar Tree," "The Dis-taff Side," "On Your Toes," Gladys, as a lead in the picture, Their mother brought the girls to New York to see If "Babes in Arms," "On Borrowed Time," "I Married an Angel," "Higher and Higher," Gladys Smith could help them Hearts of the World, ana Romola." Ola Acquaintance" and "By attempts to elude his pursuers.

All the dashing aoout seems hastily contrived. But when the play Is true to itself, which means ignoring the usual devices of plot and taking time to examine the stormy personality of a lonely, over-imaginative young girl, It is first-quality writing and it compels the audience's closest attention. With one exception, all the critics hailed "The Member of the Wedding" as immensely worthwhile but about half of them regretted that It isn't, as they claim, really a play. They called it brilliantly written and acted character ketches draped on a skimpy story line, or on practically no story line at all. They called it a study in moods, again paid tribute to its fine acting, and added that it isn't a play.

They said It is more literary than dramatic and that it lacks a beginning, middle and end, a condition shunned by all self-respecting plays. Well, if it isnt a play, our theater could use more of whatever the McCullers work happens to be. Certainly it could use more of the probing, compassionate honesty, the concern with fundamentals of life, the rich characterization and the fluent blend of tragi-comedy for the play has considerable humor, too that Miss McCullers has poured into her script. Personally, I think "The Member of the Wedding" is a play, one that knows what it wants to accomplish and that goes on to accomplish it Not with perfect success, it's true, but It does get there handsomely. The writer has done it the hard way, concentrating on internal drama rather than settling for the flashier results of a neatly turned plot, the sure-fireworks of action.

Her play does have a beginning, middle and end but they're traced in the changing personality of 12-year-old Frankie Addams, who would like very much to turn her name into F. Jasmine Addams and who wants so much to belong. Belong, belong where? Belong to something, anything that will make her feel that she's a part of life, not standing outside it. Motherless, her father a harassed little drudge with no time for her, she finds life dull, painful and, with the adolescent's tragic intensity, no end confusing in their small town in Georgia. It's entirely possible that a more seasoned playwright this is Miss McCullers' first Broadway effort could devise a stronger story around Frankie and her wild-eyed plan to "belong" by joining her soldier-brother and his bride on their honeymoon.

But it's also reasonable to suppose that some of the present script's values, its rich, deep absorption In Frankie and her relations with the family's Negro servant and her six-year-old cousin, would be lost in the alterations. And granted there was a danger that "The Member of the Wedding" might be rather static fare, since the writer generally Ignored the uproar of plot, this danger Is cleanly avoided In the performance at the Empire, thanks to Harold Clurman's sensitive direction and some beautiful playing in all three key roles by Julie Harris, Ethel Waters and young Brandon De Wilde. That brings me to one thing I can't understand in the charge that "The Member of the Wedding" is actually a literary composition, not fully adapted from Miss McCullers' novel of the same name, rather than a genuine piece of play-writing. If this were so, why are the key roles so eminently actable? And this isn't said to take anything away from Miss Waters, Miss Harris and Master De Wilde. Theirs are difficult, challenging and fruitful roles and all three meet the challenge brilliantly.

While it Is comparatively easy to whip up unadulterated humor from the adolescent's self dramatization and coltish activities as witness "Junior Miss" and similar others-It takes much greater talent and far more integrity to project the turbulence of adolescence as it appears to the youngsters themselves. Comical or ridiculous to spectators on the sidelines, the adolescent, particularly the sensitive one, believes himself a tragic figure. In Miss McCullers' piece, these truths are warmly, tenderly and skillfuly projected. Regardless of how much you sympathize with Frankie, though, you realize that she has youth on her side, resilience, vitality, the power to bounce back, even if she doesn't realize it herself. And so, at the end, when she chatters foolishly of her new plans and friends and casually says goodbye for good to her old friend, the Negro servant, the play reaches its peak of genuine poignance.

The massive dignity and Inarticulate nobility of Ethel Waters has much to do with the effectiveness of this scene, but it's also there in the script. You see, Carson McCullers does know how to bring her work to a fitting dramatic climax. It has a valid ending. Let's call her a playwright, even If she doesn't observe the rules. enter the movies.

They called the Biograph Studio and asked for Gladys Smith. The studio Jupiter." Prefers the Future wits of the day. Slow Beginning But to get back to Wiman and his 55 in 26. His beginning was anything but auspicious. Actually he and his partner, the late William.

A. Brady produced 12 flops before attaining their first success. That was Robert E. Sherwood's "The Road to Rome," which ran for a total of 429 performances and finally gave the boys some standing in the community. Then in the same year, In quick In addition to "Dance Me a Though Dorothy prefers to Song," which will open at 8 look ahead, rather than back o'clock sharp next Friday eve.

had never heard of her. It took considerable talking before they discovered that the Gladys Smith they had known in Ohio nlng at the Royale, Mr. Wiman wards, she is resigned to this restrospective attitude on the part of that section of the public who associate her with their also is planning to present in was now called Mary Pickford the near future a new play by Clifford OdeU, entitled "The Country Girl." early youth. She asks only that it be remembered that she, too, was in her childhood at that Since sheleft Hollywood in 1927, Dorothy has appeared in such plays as "Young Love," "Autumn Crocus," "The Bride the Sun Shines On," "The Streets of New York," "The time. At an age when most girls consider Kivlng up dolls in favor of the more adult mys teries of dancing school, Doro thy was acting with her sister 'Enchantment' Continues Long-Run Kaufman Record George S.

Kaufman, one of the top figures of the American theater, will once again display his wares on Broadway. Since 1921 there has been at least one play a year either written or directed by Kaufman on the stage, a healthy percentage of them being solid hits. I Great Big Doorstep" and many others. She has found time, too, to return to the Coast, where she appeared in, among others, "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay," "Missouri Legend" and the Kern musical "Sentennial Summer." on the stage and had made her debut, in fact, at the age of 4 First Nights His current assignment in- Connolly and Morrie Rysliind TUESDAY voives staging or tne new jean Of the plays he has written, ALIVE AND KICKING at the Giraudoux-Maurlce Valency Winter Garden Theater. Wil 'The Bird Cage' Gives Bit Player Major Role Currently playing a bit role in "Detective Story," Maureen Stapleton gets her first big comedy, "The Enchanted," over 15 have run for 200 or more performances on Broadway, and 20 have been sold to the movies (in many cases he directed the film versions, too).

which opens at the Lyceum Theater on Jan. 18. This Is the first time that he has directed But Kaufman Is a modest Leueen MacGrath, his bride of a few months, who has the lead. break In Arthur Laurents' "The Bird Cage," in which she will play Melvyn Douglas' wife. Originally scheduled for the liam Katzell and Ray Golden present a musical revue featuring David Burns, Lenore Lonergan, Jack Gilford and Jack Cole and his dancers.

Music by Hal Born, Irma Jurist, Sammy Fain and others. Lyrics and sketch writers Include Harold Rome, Sonny Burke, Henry Morgan. Over 30 years In the lime light have made Kaufman al role, Stella Adler decided to most a legendary figure. His wit has become famous and bow out of the play, which is being directed by Harold Clur-man, her husband. quips uttered by Kayfman are WEDNESDAY Miss Stapleton, a member of quoted witn unlimited frequency.

He has been partner THE ENCHANTED at the the Actors' Studio, has been genius. According to himself, he is rangy, brusque, occasionally brutal, completely free from affectations, but bulging with quirks. He is frightened of growing old or being considered rich or losing his hair. He forms friendships slowly, feels that he has few friends. He talks to himself, makes strange faces, nods his head.

While Kaufman was drama editor of the New York Times he wrote his first play, a farce called "Going Up," on which to some of the most heralded playwriting collaborations of seen on with Burgess Meredith in "The Playboy of the Western World," and in Katharine Cornell's "Anthony our time, having worked with Moss Hart, Edna Ferber, the late Alexander Woollcott, Marc Lyceum Theater. David Lowe and Richard Davidson present Maurice Valency's version of the Jean Giraudoux play. George S. Kaufman directed the cast, headed by Leueen McGrath, Malcolm Keen, Una O'Connor and Charles Halton. Settings by.

and Cleopatra," I 1 the curtain never went up much to his good fortune. But Robert Edmond Jones. Open somebody remembered the ing night curtain at 8. clever dialogue he had com. posed for this effort and rec THURSDAY THE MAN at the Fulton Thea ommended him as play doctor for an opus entitled "Some One in the House." It opened during the flu epidemic, closed r- ter.

Kermit Bloomgarden presents Dorothy Gish in the Mel Dinelli melodrama. Cast, directed by Martin Ritt, includes Peggy Ann Garner, Don Hammer and Robert Enhardt Settings and lighting by Jo Mielziner. Opening night curtairrat 8:20. after 37 showing. and Kaufman was stopped from advertising: "Avoid crowds.

See 'Some One in the House'." Marc Connolly was his first important collaborator, and in 1921 they hit the jackpot with FRIDAY DANCE ME A SONG at the Dulcy." in. In 1924 and 1925 he worked on his own and composed "The Butter and Egg Man" and "The Coconuts. Royale Theater. Musical revue presented by Dwight Deere Wiman and Robert Ross. Cast headed by Joan McCracken, Ann Thomas, Monica a Robert Scheerer and Bob Fosse.

Sketches by Samuel Russell Beggs and others. Both were highly successful. but Kaufman expressed a pref erence for working with some 'i JS 1 i-'ii- iiiin oa up. a body, and he teamed with Edna Ferber on "The Roval Fam- ily," "Dinner at Eight" and Music and lyrics chiefly by! James Shelton. Settings by' Jo Mielziner.

Costumes by! "Stage with Moss Hart on "Once in a Lifetime," "Mer Irene Sharaff. Opening night rily We Roll Along," "You curtain at 8. SATURDAY Can't Take It With You" and "I'd Rather Be Right," among others, and with Morrie Rys- THE COCKTAIL PARTY at kind on "Of The I Sing." the Henry Miller Theater. Gilbert Miller and Henry "The Enchanted" Is the first play by the famous Jean Girau Sherek present the new T. S.

Eliot play with the original doux that Kaufman has es British cast. Principals in corted to the stage. The cast includes, In addition to Miss MacGrath, Weslev Addy, Mal "COCKTAIL PARTY" GOERS Ernest Clark, Cathfeen Nesbit and Alec Guinness, in the usual order, arrive this Saturday night at the Henry Miller in T. S. Eliot's 'The Cocktail Party." clude Alec Guinness, Cath-leen Nesbit and Robert Flemyng.

Directed by E. Martin Browne. Opening night curtain at 8:30. "ALIVE" FUN MAKERS Arriving Tuesday night at the Winter Garden, "Aliva and Kicking" includes Earl Williams and Pat Bybell in its cast. ACTRESS WITH "ENCHANTMENT" Leueen McGrath heads the cost in the Jean Giraudoux play, adapted by Maurice Valency, die Wednesday at the Lyceum.

colm Keen, Chades Halton, Una O'Connor, Russell Collins and John Baragrey. BROOKLYN EAGLE, JAN. 15, 1950 25.