The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-11-06

when NeW 1OIk SOcleIy EeneWS us patronage at the Crillon, Avignou, Delmonico's. the Ritz. the Plaza. the Vanderbilt, and the Bntmore it's a safe bet that the season for plays personalities and pictures has opened and october usually marks the ex- odus from country places intp Goth- am's fascinating precincts.
 During a visit to New York the first two weeks in October I never saw the metropolis more attractive. l never saw larger crowds and I never saw as few good plays. With the excep- ton of round half dozen the new productions have been failures Dozens of new shows have been put on; thousands upon top. of thousands of dollars have been expended upon plays which have run the gamut within two weeks.
 One show made distinct recoFd- the press declared that at the end of the second weer the last saturday night of it's young life. every one CT the 20 people who composed the audi ence was a "deadhead.'
 Standing out luminousfy, head ana shoulders above every other play which has been in New York for the past six months Is Liliom.' But don't go to see it the first night you are there. because if you do all ths other plays will be spoiled for you. It Is so entirely different, so unique so exotic, that you find yourself com pairing every other play with 1t, and always to every other plays disao- vantage.
 Guild with a cast which plays this brilliant and perfect production of an extraordinary drama in an extra7 ordinary way.
 Franz MoInar, the Hungarian play wright, who follows his remarkable pfay. "The Devil" with "Liliom," pre- sente a living refutation of the car penter school of dramaturgy which says: "A play must be built thus and so." It mustn't Here is play in & prologue and seven scenes. The scene a faire7" True talent creates the scene and by cheating 1t con- viuces us of it's necessity. The play smashes another approximations; the tragic hero must be noble.
 'Iiiio,n" means roughneck. And poor Liliom Is as ignoble as the gut ter. Only he Is as human as blood. And therefore he Is as tragic as the grave. Humanity is tragic-not one sort of humanity. The world may have aristocracies; the universe hasn't any. Poor Liliom, who hasn't learned trade gets into nothing but lnesses. The worst mess he gets into is the mess with himself, his own soul, his own temperament. lie &< a know how to die decently. No vine leaves in his hair. He goes to the sort of heaven, to the sort of hell that suits poor devils like him. But even the internal flames can't change the essence-the eternal essence or him. He is permitted one redeemins day on earth. He blunders. He IS ap- surd. He steals a star from the sky 7 for his little daughter and then grows peevish and slaps her hand. But there is the power of love. Love saves. Not heaven. Not he'll Not Juog. ment. Just love. Barrie would have sentimentalized that. It is a truth so frightfully easy to sentimentalize MoInar has avoided that danger. He is harsh to the end, bitter to the end, xoueh and real and without conces- sions to the end. But out Of the mouth of Hons issues forth sweet ness Out of the mouth of Barries only saccharine.
 From the moment you take your seat in the theatre. tragedy perme- ates the air; you feel It; you see It; you know it's coming; and ever ana anon that weird music, "The Spar row. and "The Roughneck" singing to ssThe Sparrow's" old accordion out of tune and pitiful-as they are planning the murder of the station agent;
 Look out. here comes the damned
 police,
 The damned police. the damned po-
 lice"--
 rings on your ears, and the violin and the harp, later (for there are few orchestras in New York playhouses now, sometimes harp and violin, sometimes the "Ampico" usually no music at alb send you home with the vibrant strains still ringing in your ears.
 Joseph schildkraut is marvellous to look at-this 'Iiliom" with his "swank" and his ''svagger'' and Eva Le Galliene shows resources of truth, vitality, tragic emotion and beauti- full naturalness and restraint; she Is an artist, and so is Joseph Schild- kraut; while Helen Westley. as Madame Muskat." Is marvellous; she reaches the zenith of characterization of the woman who owns the merry go-round," who declares with such vehemence when begging 'Iiliom" to return to her because the girls all miss him so (she more than all the othersj. as she offers him more money;
 My Gawd. the things I have to do in my business"
 
 my life that couldn't get away from like "Liliom," and that was "A Tale of Two Cities''-when Martin Harvey, the English actor. played it; it just stayed putt; I couldn't get rid of it; I didn't want to. somehowl
 Of course .Bombo" and the Mu- sic Box and Sally" and "Tanger- inc" were humming merrily along with their light rollicking, delightful tuneful songs and dances aQd exotic scenic effects and all that--and when I mentioned just now that orchestras were a thing of the past in New York theatres, of course meant that musical plays" were exceptions to the rule; for In "Bombo" the orches- tra was so large that the "Piccolo player spilled over" in the front row orchestra seats while the big bass violin took stroll out in the aisle on the other side.
 Al Jolson was the whole show in "sBombo" just as Sam Bernard and Willie Collier are the whole show in the Music Box" despite the fact that little Irving Berlin wrote the show and presented 1t and sang through his nose Say it with Music"
 Al Jolson is . prime favorite in New York; he has endeared himself to theatre goers there as few other