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The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 27

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mi i mY- I 1 New English Favorite in S. Eliot's 'Cocktail Party' one of the most exciting achieve By. had'L." 1 "I- -Z ments the British stage seen in this generation. 5V LOUIS SHEAFFER Alec Guinness is not the con ventional hero lie is about When T. S.

Eliot's new comedy, "The ocklail Party." was presented by Gilbert Miller, through arrangement with Sherek Players, at Henry Miller's Theater last evening, it brought back to the American i public a young actor, Ale; Guinness, whom England regards as a star of the 'irst magnitude. Mr. Guinness' great gift for middle heig'ii with a long and patient-looking face, somewhat like Fred Astaire's. His manners are quiet and shy, and he not only can slip into a room without anyone noticing it, but actually desnes to do so. Guinness on the stage has his own particular quality, a quality that is essentially his.

This is a kind of whimsical pathos, and in some narts ne has played, such i quiet comedy has already been i tinfl aim pH in such films as "A Run for Their Money," and the 'new picture, "Kind Hearts and in tne lasvnameu film, which will be released here as the masquerading clerk in Cogol's "Government Inspec shortly, Mr. Guinness portrays ten characters, all supposed to tor," or Herbert Pocket in the iilm, "Great Expectations his whole personality is colored by it. Versatile Actor But he can exclude this be people he has murdered. It is, according to London critics who have already seen the film, an extraordinary Sad Laughter Last seen here in the play, "Flare Path," Mr. Guinness returns in "The Cocktail Party" as a Harley St.

psychiatrist with an air of watching indulgently quality from his performances entirely. In his de Valvert in "Cyrano de Bergerac" there was no whimsicality at all. In "The Human Touch," a play in which he took the part of a surgeon the follies of the humaarace patiently, but somWvhat sadlv. lauKhing at tnem. He was accorded an ovation when the play had its premiere last August at the Edinburgh Festi KATHARINE HEPBURN'S ROSALIND The stage and film star plays her first Shakespearean role in the Theater Guild's version of "As You Like It," due Thursday night at the Cort.

val, and the ovation was re-neated two weeks ago when the comedy played its "out-of-town" who discovered chloroform, whimsicality again was absent. In its place was the fire of indignation and a voice that sounded like the angry chime of hells. In "Th? Cocktail Party," Broadway audiences will see this actor in his whimsical mood and above and beyond it. In its portrayal he has been likened to such distinguished actors as Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Henry Irving and John Gielgud. It appears that Guinness is in- honorable company.

tryout in Brighton, England. Generally recognized as tne greatest living poet, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Hepburn Finds Challenge In Bard's 'As You Like It' in 1948, this is Mr. Eliot's first play to reach these shores in Although "As You Like It" is considered Shakespeare's 12 years. The new play was considered by London critics as happiest, most light-hearted piay, me jou years since us nremiere have found the sunny comedy trailing in number of nerformances behind many of the Bard's other works. The role of Rosalind has attracted sucn Wendell Corey Has Own Views On Child Care and Gives Them WENDELL COREY stars in "Thelma Jordon," that picture in which Barbara Stanwyck's aunt: Vera gets murdered, and Corey, the assistant district attorney, who has fallen in love with anyway, the picture's at the N.

Y. Paramount and Wendell Corey is in New York and talked about it, the other das. at Sardi's. "I'll never forget it," saidMr. Corey, fervently.

Jordon" is a Hal Wallis production, released by Paramount.) "I guess Hal Wallis won't either. My youngest child was born right in the middle of it, one morning, and I dashed to the hospital and held up production till the baby arrived. It cost the studio about $9,000. Mr. Wallis never said anything, though.

"Nervous? Sure I was nervous. I'll be just as excited when the fourth one comes" along, too." The Coreys have been married 10 years and Mr. Corey, who had been in New York only a few days, was getting tlown because he hadn't been able to persuade Mrs. Corey to join him here, without first stopping off to visit her par-ents in Buffalo. "We've never been separated before," he complained.

The two met in Springfield, where Corey was-in a show, and his wife, a Mt. Holyoke College, drama student, joined the show briefly during the Summer vacation. She was so good that they kept her on, and then she and Corey got married, and Hollywood called, and the children came, and Mrs. Corey's theatrical career, which her husband feels would have been outstanding, got lost. The children are daughter, Robin, five; son, Jonathan, three, and daughter, Wallis, nine months.

As a family man, Mr. Corey is well qualified, from the point of experience, to speak on the care and upbringing of children. "Spoil 'em," he advised. "I spoil mine. How can they be expected to have stability in later life if they don't get love and affection when they are little? Babies are not born to be laid out in a basket.

They ought to be taken up and held, especially when they cry. You know how the natives of Okinawa bring up their children? They don't train them or anything1, just love them and take care of them. The Okinawans are very stable when they grow up maybe the most stable people in the world. I read a piece about them." Hollywood, added Mr. Corey, with a reckless disregard of the California Chamber of Commerce, is no better than anywhere else to raise children.

"You can raise children anywhere," he remarked. "New York is as good as any place. Lots of orange juice in California? They ship the best oranges out. Let me quote my baby on California orange juice. When she was born, there had been a big freeze, and California was importing Florida oranges, so she drank Florida orange juice for her first few months.

Then, when she was about four months "old, California oranges were back, and she got her first taste of the native product. She spit it out. Clear across the room." Mr. Corey by now realized that he had wounded the California Chamber of Commerce deeply, but he went on, blithely, with his revelations about life in Hollywood. "We have tarantulas, centipedes and scorpions," he confided.

"Lizards I say nothing about. They're cute, and the children love them. But my wife had an experience with a centipede went to the closet for a dress, and there was a big gray-green centipede on it, four or five inches long. She admitted it scared the hell outta her, but she got it intq a jar and kept it to show me when I got home. It scared the hell outta me." Corey, who was on the Broadway stage before going to Hollywood, is the six-foot, two-inch son of a New England minister, and can trace his family back to two U.

S. Presidents, John Adams and John Quincy Adams. His forbears, pioneer Yankee slock on both sides, fought in the Revolutionary War. He was born in Dracut, which is just outside Luwell, and has unquenchable passion for the rocks and rills of his native State. He's been everywhere, and he maintains that there is no scenery anywhere on earth to match the Berkshires in Fall dress.

He loves the New England stone walls: "I built a stone wall myself, 15 years ago, on my father's place and it's still there." Wendell Corey was on Broadway in Elmer Rice's "Dream Girl" when Hal Wallis brought him to Hollywood to make his debut in the Technicolor Western "Desert Fury." famous actresses as Peg Wof-fington, Sarah Siddons, Mary First Nights MONDAY Anderson, Helene Modjeska, Ada Rehan, Adelaid Neilsen, Lily Langtry and Julia Marlowe and yet the record shows more presentations of "Twelfth Night," "The Taming of the DESIGN FOR A STAINED Shrew" and even "Richard III- i Naturally, such out-front favor-, ites as "Hamlet," "Macbeth" and There Was Only One Giraudoux As 'The Enchanted' Again Proves THE. WORKING of magic in the theater, as well as anywhere else, is a risky proposition. The slightest evidence of straining for effect, smallest hint of self-consciousness, and pouf! the magic begins to evaporate. Jean Giraudoux, the nimble-minded French playwright whose death a few years back left a truly unfillable gap in the contemporary theater, worked magic as if it were no problem at all. It came, or seemed to come, easily and naturally to him.

It was the sunniest kind of magic. He felt at home with it, as was demonstrated so enjoyably in last season's 'The Madwoman of Chaillot" and as once more is displayed with considerable beguiling charm and humor in "The Enchanted," which moved into the Lyceum Theater a few nights ago. One of the oddest, most captivating things about Giraudoux, probably the most captivating one, is that he combined somehow the pure, unfettered vision of an imaginative child with the highly civilized brain of a true sophisticate. And these two qualities, normally at war or at least hostile to one another, lived together in Giraudoux ery happily, each reinforcing the other's value, disciplining it, keeping it within sociable bounds. In consequence, his whimsy has muscle to it.

His delight in skylarking fantasy is warmly companioned by zest for life's simple bread-and-butter pleasures. His innocent mischief is likely to change at any moment into devastating satire. And his compassionate affection for the vulnerable or disinherited has a sterner side to it, one that looks with scorn on the smug-smugs and ego-pomposas of the world. With a child, or the child of heart, he is the most sympathetic and loving of friends. But turn him loose on the skinny-souled or callously powerful or brutal and he is a formidable judge, all the more formidable for handing down his decisions with wit and free-wheeling fancy.

A propagandist for the joy of living, Giraudoux's basic theme in both "The Madwoman of Chaillot" and "The Enchanted" is the same. Some folks who know how to enjoy life are being thwarted by those in high office or with power who lack the capacity themselves. In the former play, it was a pixilated "countess" and her ragtag assortment of friends who are besieged, with the "Madwoman" showing the way to victory. In "The Enchanted," the champion is again' a woman and she's almost equally as strange. She is a young school teacher in a small French town who, by a playful twist of Giraudoux's vaulting imagination, is so intoxicated with life that she is fascinated by the idea of death and- the hereafter.

Imagining herself in love with a handsome young ghost who haunts the village, she conceives the idea of marshalling the dead to come to the aid o.f living. The ghost is to be her courier and aide-decamp, as she tells him, for organizing an army of ghosts. Like a fighter who has left the ring and taken a seat among the spectators, the dead must have the true perspective on life, she figures. In outline the play sounds grim or eerie, but actually it ls.no such thing, not for a moment. Fantastic, yes, but not spooky.

Even when the play rings in two executioners, they don't bring with them a somber note. They're a jolly sort of executioners, obliging their employers with one of their trade songs, a singing commercial you might sav. And the ghost, while a shy soul, is a friendly ghost. You see, "The Enchanted" joyfully embroiders around subject matter that is normally handled with long faces. Only trouble is, the pattern isn't very consistent or logical consistent even by Giraudoux's own standards.

Fanciful as the story is in "The Madwoman of Chaillot," it all hangs together. It has an inner logic to it, with the action developing in harmony with its fantastic premise. Furthermore, as a matter of sober fact, "The Madwoman" isn't pure moonshine. Giraudoux simply used a poetic, humorous, extravagant style the one that was natural to him to voice some dead-in-earnest warnings against the worship of money. The child and the sophisticate both disapproved.

But in "The Enchanted," there are too many hazy places for an organized pattern, too many things are left unexplained, too much of it is loosely connected. "The Enchanted," as a result, is enjoyable taken as Individual scenes, and there are plenty of them to enjoy. The teacher's humorously phrased annoyance, for instance, at the slothfulness of the dead. Or the young supervisor's richly poetic explanation of why his life in the Bureau of Weights and Standards is so full and exciting. Or the delightful quizzing of the school children.

Or any one of a dozen other little scenes. Like a roman-candle, Giraudoux was constantly throwing off flashes of thought and humor. In Mauricte Valency's sensitive adaptation, the play has substance as well as brilliance. And George S. Kaufman's staging, while not all that it might have been, has drawn some excellent performances from a responsive cast, notably from Leueen MacGrath as the teacher, Malcolm Keen as a pompous official, Wesley Addy as the girl's suitor, Russell Collins and Charles Halton.

Whatever its shortcomings, the Lyceum's performance of "The Enchanted" is choice fare for discriminating playgoers. It brings us Giraudoux'g special brand of magic. GLASS WINDOW at the Mansfield Theater. OBS Productions present Martha Scott in the Howard Richardson-William Berney historical drama. Cast, directed by Ella Garber, includes Ralph Clan-ton, Charlton Heston, Carroll McComas and others.

Settings 'Romeo and Juliet" arent fig ured into this comparison. Except for a Henrietta Cros- man engagement, wnicn was and costumes by Stewart given 60 times in 1902, the comedy has never run more than Chaney. First night curtain at 8. TUESDAY two and a half weeks consecutively in this country. Mostly it has.

been in the repertoire of THE HAPPY TIME at the Rodgers Shakespearean troupes, headed among others by Sothern and Plymouth Theater, and Hammerstein present Marlowe, Margaret A 1 i Robert B. Mantell and Fritz Leiber. Samuel Taylor's adaptation of the Robert Fontaine novel. Directed by Robert Lewis. Cast headed by Claude Dau Hepburn's Challenge phin, Richard Hart, Leora Katharine Hepburn's por Dana, Eva Gabor, Edgar Stehli and Johnny Stewart trayal of Rosalind, in the Theater Guild production open Settings and costumes by Aline Bernstein.

First night ing at the Cort Theater this Thursday, is therefore a chal curtain at 8. WEDNESDAY lenge to the stage and movie THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE at tar. Returning to the stage the City Center. Bernard Shaw revival by New York after a seven-year absence, -he has chosen the banished girl, City Theater Company. Maurice Evans, Dennis King who roams the forest of Arden Marsha Hunt and Victor Jory starred.

Settings and light CLAUDE DAUPHIN AND LEORA DANA are among the leads of "The Happy rime," a Rodgers and Hammerstein presentation opening Tuesday at the Plymouth. A 'Happy Time' Frenchman in boy's guise, as her first Shakespearean role. Her Orlando will be an actor ing by Peter Wolf. Costume who received his first profes direction by Emeline Roche First night curtain at 8:15. THURSDAY Finally Knows the Answers When Claude Dauphin was engaged for his first Englisl AS YOU LIKE IT at the Cort Theater.

The Theater Guild presents "Katharine Hepburn in the Shakespearean com-edv. Other principals are speaking motion picture, he couldn't speak one word of our; language. That was in July, 1943. As Mr. Dauphin says "I had! sional training as Lucentio in a bus touring edition of "The Taming of the Shrew." He is William Prince, who acted with Maurice Evans in "Henry IV" and "Hamlet" 'before scoring personal hits in "The Eve of St.

Mark" and "John Loves Mary." Two of England's best-known actors, Ernest Thesiger and Bill Owen, will play Jacques and Touchstone, respectively. 1 did not understand the: to learn my lines by heart and William Prince, Ernest Thesi The picture was. The picture answers. ger, Bill Owen, Aubrey Mather, Judy Parrish and Cloris broadcast to the French people back in his homeland. During these months he lived with a Leachman.

Staged by Michael Ruggedly built, weighing 192 pounds, he reached stardom in "Thelma Jordon" after eight pictures, the last-before-this 1 icing "The Accused," with. Loretta Young, and "Sorry, Wrong Number," with Barbara Stanwyck. Before going to Hollywood and in between Broadway chores he produced, directed and acted In hundreds of plays in Summer stock. He would like to divide his time between Hollywood and Broadway, and has a yen to be a producer. If he does, he'll follow a well-treaded path.

Humphrey Bogart doubles on both sides of the camera these days. So does Ida Lupino, even though it's not in the same pictures. Burt Lancaster's another, who likes to execk some of his own pictures. Now Wendell Corey wants to. Bet he does, too.

New Englanders are stubborn. Benthall. Scenery and cos tumes by James Bailey. Pro French family, who continued French Without Tears" with Michael Wilding and Lilli Palmer and was made in England. Mr.

Dauphin had been in England for ten months at that time working for the British Services. Each day he wrote a propaganda speech which he The Guild production was con duction supervised by There ceived and staged by Michael sa Helburn and Lawrence to use their native tongue and so he could not learn English. Stormy Weather Langner. First night curtain Benthall, while the' settings and costumes were designed by at 8. James Bailey.

Mr. Dauphin had arrived in England after a hair-raising es cape from ranee in a smaii Andres Segovia Due at Academy In Guitar Recital fishing boat. He had been called to England to do a special broadcast. There were 11 in the boat, including Mr. The Record Shows Getting bck to the record.

"As You Like It" was first given in this country at the John Street Theater in ITSfi with a Mrs. Kenna as Rosalind. Jumping ahead to this century, Henrietta Cr'osman's lecord engagementall of 00 performances was fbllowed in 1007 by Dauphin's sister. The weather was very stormy that October Andres Segovia, guitar vir of 1942, and it took the craft 9 tuoso, will be heard in recital at the Academy of Music this Tuesday evening at 8:30 as the sixth artist to participate in the il Ren Greet's company with Sybil 13 days to reach Gibraltar, where none of the passengers ever expected to land. From there Mr.

Dauphin was flown Thorndike as the maid of Ar den. In the troupe were Fritz Major Concert Series, held un to England. der the auspices of the Brook Leiber, Percy Waram and a young fellow who has acquired a bigger reputation along with 4 lyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. His program will draw upon a rich repertory of con When "French Without Tears" was completed, the actor joined the Free French Forces. A year later he was his increased bulk in recent SHAW'S FASHION TIPS? Now that (cdiic Hard-wicke's promlHPfl to serve as commentator on woman's fashions at the annual March of Dimes Fashion Hhow-Jiiincheon, coming up Jan.

31 at the Waldorf-Astoria, the actor wonders what articulate old Bernard Shaw will have to say on the matter. He has cause to wonder. Ever since Sir Odric went to work on the current revival of "Caesar and Cleopatra," he has been bombarded with postcards from the sage of Ayot-St. Law rence advising him everything from salary demands to a cure for sore throats. He figures that his fashion show stint Is too good an opportunity to be overlooked by Shaw, who has his own very definite ideas to use an euphemismon distaff matters.

Sir Cedric's fellow commentator will be sniffish Arthur Treacher, who also figures at the National In "Caesar and Cleopatra." cert music for the guitar, rang sent to New York to make a years. The young fellow was Sydney Greenstreet. From 1910 to 1920 the comedy ing from the 17th Century to Yv rw the present. propaganda picture, "Salute to France." whose directors were fix was almost the exclusive prop The evening will open with the Suite in by R. de Visee.

Garson Kanin, for the English erty of the Sothern Marlowe version, and Jean Renoir for guitarist at the court of Louis the French. Mr. Dauphin did both versions as did Burgess Meredith, American star. Dauphin says he and Meredith had vrvy mi i and the Mantell companies, but one notable addition to their ranks was Margaret Angling presentation in 1914 as one of three Shakespearean comedies. Greenstreet also figured in her company, as did such an unlikely figure as "Father Day" long before, of course, Howard IV.

From the earlier periods, Mrs. Segovia will also draw upon the music of Bach, Haydn, Mendelssohn and Fernando Sor. More recent composers whose works will be heard are Granados, Albeniz, Turina, Crespo and Castelnuovo-Tedes-co, the last three having dedi a rare time laugning at eacn other according to the version that was being made. Now Claude Dauphin is making his second appearance on the American stage, and says cated their works to Mr. Se that he now "understands the govia.

answers" given him in English. Lindsay knew that he would come to such a celebrated role. And when Miss Anglin played "As You Like It" in St. Louis her troupe included one Alfred Lunt, who played Le Beau and doubled into another small role. Andres Segovia is now on his sixth American tour under the direction of S.

Hurok. Born in Granada, the -guitarist now In fact, only a trace of his French accent remains. He was selected by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II for Stuart Erwin Signed Stuart Erwin has been signed for a featured role in "Great to Be Alive," new musical com "Robert Mantell was Jacques makes his home in Uruguay. His first concert appearance a leading role in the new com IN "STAINED GLASS" Martha Scott and Charlton Heston are among the principals of tomorrow night's premiere at the Mansfield, "Design for a Stained Glass Window." and Frederick Lewis the Orlando," Alfred Lunt recalls today. "We minor players never took place in his native city edy which Vinton Freedley is when he was 14 years old and edy, "The Happy Time," whicn they will present at the Plymouth Theater this Tuesday evening.

BERNARD SHAW'S DISCIPLES Maurice Evans, Marsha Hunt and Dennis King star in 'The Devil's Disciple," opening Weiiesday at th City Center for two weeks. since then, he has been heard producing with Anderson Law ler and Russell Markert. BROOKLYN EAGLE, JAN. 22, 1950 27 i dared speak to such exalted I actors." throughout the world..

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Years Available:
1841-1963