The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 59

Skaters an'd Photoplays Music and Art Garden News Brooklyn Theaters and Photoplays section Book Reviews Radio Puzzles AGLE daily NEW YORK CITY, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1932 TEN CENTS Important New Productions Reach Broadway Stages This Week PLAYERS iy 'FIREBIRD' Plays and Things In Local Playhouses By ARTHUR POLLOCK i "Maedchen in Uniform," Unusual Film, Comes to Majestic "Shuffle Along of 1932" Visits the Boulevard Theater Dark Hours" and "Its Actors "The Perfect Marriage" and Its Actors "Chrysalis" and Its Misdirected Energy DON MARQUIS has brought a great deal of reverence to the writing of "The Dark Hours," his Passion Play at the New Amsterdam Theater, a reverence that gives it a sober quality of sincerity and a quiet eloquence more suitable perhaps for a play that is to be read than for onevr(tten to be acted. A little less reverence, a little more daring might, as a matter of fact, have made it a play the public would perhaps care to crowd to see. It may be the staging that gives it an artificial air or it may be the great respect the author has for his subject, but the truth is that in his efforts to keep Christ off the stage as much as possible Mr. Marquis has given his play at moments the appearance of a great feat accomplished with great effort. Time after time we hear Christ speak off stage and supposed to be awed by the sound of His voice and His proximity, but the result is only speculation as to just what the actor playing the role really looks like and how little TAEDCHEN IN UNIFORM," the famous German talking pic-ly I ture (with titles in English), which has been a success in London, Berlin, Paris and New York, where it is now play ing to capacity audiences in its third month at the Criterion Theater, will open at the Majestic Theater, Brooklyn, for a special six-day engagement beginning with a matinee tomorrow and continuing twice daily thereafter at 2:50 in the afternoon and 8:50 In the evening, with Ell seats reserved.

It will be the only engagement in Brooklyn this year. This unusual picture, which is being presented by John Krimsky and Gifford Cochran, young newcomers to the film world, has been termed by the press "the. first original talkie yet to be made." The story is based on a play by Christa Winsloe, which has had tremendous success, paralelling that of the film, throughout Europe and England. Miss Winsloe made the adaptation for the screen herself, working with Leontine Sagan, who directed. No man appears in the cast, and the film has often been hailed1 as an "all-feminine achievement." 'Shuffle Along of 1932' At the Boulevard "Shuffle Along of 1932" will be tha attraction at the Boulevard Theater for four days beginning Wednesday evening, Nov.

23, with matinees on Thanksgiving Day and Saturday. Flournoy Miller, Morejand Man-tan, Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake head the company of 90. "Shuffle Along of 1932" is the work of those Hertha Thiele, who has received praise from the press and public of the entire world, has the leading role of the sensitive school child, and Dorothea Wieck Is the lovely schoolmistress for whom she develops a tragic adoration. Emilia Unda is the Bismarckian headmistress, who so misinterprets the situation that a tragic ending is only narrowly averted, and the entire cast of women and girls has been lauded for the perfection of their characterizations. trouble.

The poor girl had been sent to a home for wayward young ladies. Hie rich girl is being sent to a nice relative when she tries to help the poor girl's lover, who has escaped from jail, to reunite himself with his love. This gets her Into the hands of the police and into the papers. And the play comes to an end with her very much puzzled by and very much disappointed in life. This is all very well as an idea for a play.

But plays, in addition to needing ideas, have to be written. And this one is written clumsily and without skill, without a creditable motive to cement Its people and its action tight together. Its characters are dynamos with labels orl them, capable of commendable energy but having little individuality. They do what they are told and the author cannot give them convincing words In which to explain why they do it. "Chrysalis" is a surprisingly rough diamond.

his manner of speaking seems like that of the Son of God. Mr. Marquis writes as if he loved his subject and were talking gently to himself, as he turned the Bible story over in his mind. The actors, by no means equal to so difficult a task as the play imposes upon them, strive and strain to give it a dramatic force and deep feeling, but their efforts are mere mouth-ings for the most part. The play requires a fine austerity in the acting, a simplicity of which only the best of actors are capable, and it getshardly more than good intentions.

Hugh Miller, pjaying Judas, has the right spirit, Charles Bryant has a dignified look and an effective pose. The others enjoy less success. "The Dark Hours" is too delicate thing to win its way to the interest of an audience in the theater unless it is acted with a simplicity no less than superb and staged with a skill that amounts to magic. three versatile colored entertainers. Miller having written the book and Sissle and Eubie Blake having collaborated on the lyrics and music.

Among the outstanding song hits "Bandana Ways." "Sunflower Land." "Waiting for the Whistle to Blow" and "Keep Your Chin Up." The three outstanding faatures of "Shuffle Along of 1932" are the Will Kern Has Written Henry Stephenion and Judith Anderton, tteho head the cast of Gilbert Miller'g second production of the teuton, opening tomorrow evening at the Empire. Theater, No Reprise Song Jerome Kern and Oscar Ham-merstein 2nd are old hands at the trade of the theater. Their collaboration on "Show Boat" alone is sufficient to stamp them as men of distinctive talent. But in all their years as artificers of the stage they have never approached a New York opening with more eagerness for the critical and public verdict than this debut of "Music In the Air" at the Alvin Theater, Election night. "Music In the Air" is a piece which departs from all their formulas of the past.

It is a play with music which stems from operetta and drama and yet is neither. The authors have named it a "musical adventure" as defining what they have attempted more clearly than any other term. The music has been made Insubordinate to, and not dominant over the drama. Opportunities for geometric dance routines have been avoided. There is a chorus of fresh mellow voices but it is not permitted to obstruct the play or obscure the characters.

The natural pattern of the tale has not been twisted to bring the whole cast on the stage for the finale of the first act. Instead of a crashing curtain it ends pianissimo in a poignant subtle scene of two old men drinking to their boyhood memories. Mr. Kern has written no reprise song, repeated and repeated to impress the public ear; even a romantic melody has been withheld until the last few minutes before the closing curtain when this refrain rolls round the cast and performs its chore In the reunion of the lovers. All Europe Has 'Firebirds' voorey choir of 30, Noble Sissle or-chestra and the usual singing and dancing choristers.

Hampden as Cyrano At Majestic Nov. 28 Walter Hampden and "Cyrano da Bergerac" the names have come to be synonomous to all lovers of the theater will pay another visit of one week to Brooklyn, beginning Monday, Nov. 28, when Mr. Hampden will appear In Edmond Rostand's famous heroic comedy at the Majestic Theater for the second time withirL six months. This will Tte the highlight of the theatrical season for many, especially those who were unable to procure seats during "Cyrano's" week at the Majestic last April when many were turned away, breaking all Brooklyn records for a dramatic attraction.

The popularity of the play in all the countries of Europe has lasted for a third of a century, and the extraordinary success achieved in it by Mr. Hampden in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Chicago and other large cities of the United States during the past eight years makes It a classic of the American stage. Mr. Hampden took "Cyrano" on a coast to coast tour last season for the first time. He did not do so before because for seven years he was stationed permanently in New York presenting a series of productions in his own theater, where he became celebrated as America's only Independent actor-manager, not going on the road except to make short visits to nearby cities in the late Spring and early Autumn.

Touring with "Cyrano" Is really a tremendous physical undertaking and financially hazardous because the production is unusually massive and the play has no less than 121 speaking parts, requiring a cast of 75 actors, so that a special train of seven cars is necessary for transportation of scenery, company and mechanical accessories. It will be presented at the Majcstie Theater exactly as before, the cast end production having undergone no change. Another Waldron Takes to Stage Charles Waldron son of Charles Waldron, who played the father with Katharine Cornell in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street," in New York and on tour, will make his debut as an actor with Mus Cornell in "Lurrccc." in whlrh his father also will appear. Young Waldron will take the stage name of Thome, after his maternal grandmother. He will represent the third generation of Waldrons behind the footlights.

Mr. and Mrs. George B. Waldron, Thome's paternal grandparents, were well-known players a generation ago. George Waldron starred in the West with the famous California Stock company In San Francisco, with a company In Portland, where David Belasco was an actor, snd with the noted Salt Lake Theater company, which the Mor TIREBIRD," in which Gilbert Miller presents Judith Anderson tomorrow evening at the glamorous Empire Theater, is a play with a history, although its first presentation was only ten months ago.

The number of languages into which it has been translated since then and the number of cities In which it has been shown, are equaled, among Hungarian plays, only by Molnar's "Liliom." Hungary is proverbially a country of dramatists, and Lajos Zilahy, the author of "Firebird." Is its latest product. He is the author of twelve plays and a number of novels. His best known plays are "The Sun Is Shining" and "The General." The former is a Hungarian folk play with a poetic quality that is untranslate-able. (One of Mr. Zilahy's outstanding characteristics is his brilliant style, his facile dialogue.) The other of the two plays, "The General," is a war drama.

Both won the coveted "Vojnits Prize" in Hungary, which is analagous to our Pulitzer Prize, and both have been played throughout Europe. "The General" was made into a motion picture In America. Two Zilahy novels have been published in English in this country, "The Two Princesses" (1930) and "The Deserter" (1931) by Doubleday Doran. "Firebird" was first produced in Budapest on Feb. 17, 1932, at the Muvesz Theater, which means, we are told, "Artists Theater." It holds a position and policy similar to that of our Theater Guild.

The play was an immediate and brilliant success, one of the greatest In years. A production at the Kammerspiele Theater in Vienna followed and scored another success. Germany Walter Hampden, who trill bring 'Cyrano de fler-feme. bark to the Brooklyn Mnjrttie Theater for for the Keek beginning Aot, 28. broke out in a veritable rash of "Firebird" productions, as did other dom," with Leslie Howard: Molnar's "The Gvxi Fairy." with Helen Hayes; John Van Druten's "There's Always Juliet," with Edna Best and Herbert Marshall, and "Payment Deferred," with Charles Laughton.

In past seasons. Mr. Miller has continental cities. It was shown in A MOVIE COMES TO THE MAJESTIC All four of the leading characters In "The Perfect Marriage," which opened the other night at the Morosco Theater, are over 70 years of age. The actors wh play them are not that old.

They are a good deal younger. And in one case at least the player is very eager indeed to exhibit youth and age and surprising skill in character acting all at the same time. Fay Bainter's Idea of an old woman is something comical. The idea of all four, for that matter, seems to be that a man or a woman of 70 is a man or a woman of about 120. These actors obviously get all their ideas of age from seeing other actors play oldsters on the stage.

They believe, or appear to, that at the age of 70 or 75 a human being is invariably a person with a voice that squeaks and a body as ready to come apart as a 20-year-old flivver. Mrs. Fiske was 65 or so when she died, but the year before she had filled the stage with energy in a play about a woman who flabbergasted a jury of men. But Fay Bainter believes that a woman ten years older walks as if both legs were wooden and can't talk without making funny faces. She plays her old lady like a muscle-bound acrobat.

Her characterization in "The Perfect Marriage" is the baldest of caricatures. One supposes that she never had the pleasure of meeting a woman over 50. The other three players also go In for strange noises, unsteady steps and all the other accepted symbols of age. The play would be twice as interesting if they allowed their Characters to remain human. In the case of Fay Bainter, perhaps, she is merely too eager to provide a contrast that will cause the audience to gasp when, having appeared first as a woman of a 100 and more, she is seen next as the girl she was 45 years before, sweet and lovely.

Miss Bainter plays as if her consenting, at her age, to pretend to be In the seventies, was a matter sure to set the world pretty well on fire. Her Idea is to give the public such a wonderful piece of character acting as will knock the public's eye right out. Chrysalis." a play the coming of which has been looked forward to with interest since it was first presented during the Summer up In Westport, arrived during the past week. It did not on the occasion of its first appearance in the big city appear exactly wonderful. In fact it was a little childish, rather like the forced and feeble dramas that come to town along with the early Spring wild flowers.

The producers have given It a fine cast, a cast in which well-known names abound at least. And the players act It for all It is worth. But, though fierce In Its earnestness, it is loose and flimsy. A girl brought up in luxury, given all the opportunities a girl could have (except the opportunity of amounting to something by virtue of having an Intelligent mother) gets into all sorts of trouble merely because she is Interested In life and wants with all her might to find out something about it and live It to the full. At the same time that she Is trying blindly to find her way about the world, other girl, a girl brought up in the worst of environments but equally eager to make the most of life, is getting into trouble too.

The two girls meet and the rich girl tries to help the poor girl out of a mess she has got herself Into. The wealthy mother disapproves violently of any such conduct on the part of her daughter, whereupon the daughter tells her that shs and the poor girt are very much alike. They both have lovers, for one thing, and their mothers nag them for another. So the rich mother tries to do just what the poor mother did, to send her daugh there is also Ian Keith, Montagu Love, Nita Naldi, Reginald Mason, John Daly Murphy, Edgar Kent and more than twenty others. All these facts, and the fact that "Firebird" Is the production of the International producer, Gilbert Miller, makes it one of the notable plays of the season.

It was Mr. Miller, readers will remember, who last season presented four hits Philip Barry's "The Animal King been responsible for "Tomorrow and Tomorrow," "Petticoat Influence." "Journey's End." "Berkeley Square." and many other distinguished pro-' auctions. The Ncu; Flays in Manhattan i ViY y' 'jt 'y (Kyi lip X' sA Frankfort, Breslau, Munich, Hamburg; the Berlin production was one of almost unprecedented success. Bucharest, Prague, and Innumerable other cities have seen the play or are about to see it; it is shortly to be presented in Milan with the celebrated Tatiana Pavlova in the role which will be played here by Judith Anderson. Mr.

Miller's London production of the play, with Gladys Cooper in the stellar role, opened triumphantly in August and is still playing to capacity houses at The, Playhouse. The play is now being translated into Serbian. Polish, Scandinavian, Jewish, and, the somewhat bewildered Mr. Zilahy said, probably Into whatever language is being spoken in Timbuctoo. Zilahy himself Is a handsome man, with fairish brown hair and large wide eyes.

He seems very young, not more than thirty-two or three, if he Is that old. He arrived on these shores to attend rehearsals of "Firebird" about twelve days ago. He speaks a very good English, the result, he explained when asked about It. of numerous visits to London, and of some time spent In Hollywood two years ago. He is married and has a small son.

Questioned as to the reasons for his avoidance of Interviewers, he explained that any mention of the author of "Firebird" had better wait until the play was produced, and we saw how American audiences liked it. The fact that It has been a hit In almost every country of Europe had nothing to do with Its career here, he felt. The company which Gilbert Miller has gathered for the American production Includes an array of art-ors and actresses who might make up an all-star cast. There is. of course.

Miss Anderson, the unforgettable actress of "The Dove." "Cobri." "Brhold. The Bridegroom" and "As You Desire Me." Henry Stephenson, who appears opposite her. will be remembered for his performance in "Cynara." "The Command to Love." "Petticoat Influence" and innumcrablt other plays, and mon Church established in that cltv. Monday "FIREBIRD." a play from the Hungarian of Lajos Zilahy, presented by Gilbert Miller at the Empire Theater. Judith Anderson Is the star and the cast Includes Henry Stevrnson, Ian Keith, Montagu Love, Nita Naldi, Reginald Mason, Edgar Kent, John Daly Murphy, Elizabeth Young, Evelyn Beresford.

Margot Stevenson and Mab Maynard. "MUSIC HALL VARIETIES," George White's new show, at the Casino Theater. Harry Rlchman, Lily Damlta and Bert Lahr are the stars In a cast which Includes Eleanor Powell, the Loomis Sisters. Betty Kean, Barre Hill and the Hudson Wonders. The sketches are by William K.

Wells and Mr. White, and the songs by Irving Caesar, Harold Arlen, Sam H. Stept, Herb Magldson, Heiman Hupfeld and Carmen Lombardo. "MORAL FABRIC," a play by O. N.

Albyn. at the Province-town Playhouse. In the cast are Edna M. Holland, Harry Holbrook, Joseph N. P.

Wilson and Alma Brook. Tuesday "THE DUBARRY," an operetta, it the George M. Cohan Theater. Grace Moore Is the star. i Thursday "JAMBOREE," a melodrama by Jack Black and Bessie Bcatly, at the Vanderbllt Theater.

The players Include Carlcton Mary, Dodson Mitchell, Barry Macollum. Ruth Chorpennlng and Frank Dae. "TAKE A CHANCE." presented by Laurence Schwab and B. O. De 8lva at the Oollo Theater.

The book is by the same two gentlemen with the addition of Sid Sllvrrs, the music by Herb Brown, Richard Whiting snd Vlnrent Youmnns. In the cast are Jack Haley, Ethel MermHn, Jack Whiting. Sid Slivers, June Knight, Mltzl Mayfalr, Josephine Dunn and Douglas Wood. Settings by Cleon Throckmorton. Annie KLsradden, mother of Maudn Adams, played her first part on the stace under George Waldrons di rection.

Waldron and his wife, howrvrr, did not want their son to be an actor; so they tried to make a banker of him. but Charles Waldron ran away from the financial world when David Higglns offered him $20 a wek to play the Juvenile role In "Kidnapped." He seldom saw the salary, but he did see a great many one-nlsht stands. After nine years In stock and a starring tour in "Tlis Virginian" and "The Squaw Man" In Australia, he mnde his Broadway debut In the old Belasco (now tha Republic) Theater In David nelas-ros production of "The Warrens ol Vlmlnla." Unlike his paints. Charles WaU dron made no objection to his son going on ths stage. A group of the young Indiri in the nolnhle German film, 'Maedrhen In I nifnrm which, trhile rn tfnuin Ut popular, run at tht Criterion Theater, in Manhattan, payi tcrck'i visit to Brooklyn, ter awajr who aha.