San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-03-11
BY KENNETH MACGOWAN.

Copyright, by The San Antonio Light.
New York March 1O.-Negotiations
between the Moscow Art theater and
prominent motion picture concern
will furnish Broadway good deal to
talk about within the next few days.
This extraordinary company of ac-
tors has already provoked more dis
cussion than any one theatrical ven
ture in American history and its press
agent has pasted IN record footage
of printed publicity. After playing
to eight weeks of business quite as
unprecedented, the New York engage
ment has been extended a month and
a short tour of Boston, Chicago and
possibly Philadelphia will follow.
At the close of the tour Stanislav-
isky's Russians will appear before the
camera in the first film that they
have ever made. As matter Of fact,
this will undoubtedly be the first
photoplay for which the entire COM
pany Of one of Europe's really great
theatres have ever posed. Members
of this troupe have appeared in Rus
sian-made pictures which could not be
successfully exhibited in America but
which showed the vivid effect pro-
duced by their expressive faces, their
vigorous bodies and their extraordin-
airy skill to make up.
The basis Of negotiation at present
is the production on the screen Of the
Russian tragedy. "Tsar Fyodor Ivan
ovitch," written by Count Alexi
Tolstoi, cousin of the more famous
Leo. The play, as the Moscow Art
theatre produces it is riotous
pagentary of barbaric color and magni-
ficence, as well as an epic of histori-
cal conflict and a pathetic study of
the psychology OF the half-witted
Tsar.
"Humoresque" on the Stage.
The motion picture is responsible
for at least one play produced here
this season. II Fannie Hurst's story
"Humoresque" had not been so sue
cessfully screened in all probability it
would never have reached the stage
as vehicle for Lauretta Taylor. The
part of the plot dealing with the love
affair between a young genius of the
violin and an almost equally remark
able singer. who turns out to have
been a childhood friend from the
slums. is altogether too sentimental
and convenient for anything but the
screen.
The relation between the genius
and the mother who has brought him
up from the slums to fame, is, of
course, splendid material for the stage,
but the turns of plot which should
give it dramatic quality are badly
managed. The advent of war and
the boys determination to give up his
art and go to the front is hashed
over so thoroughly that the last act
is hardly more than a repetition of
the second.
On top of this II is astonishing to
discover how far off the great war
now is. Battle is the most moving
thing that you can picture in the
theatre-just ms it is the most NOV
ing thing in life-but the reality of
it has got TO be hanging over you
like a cloud. When the cloud is
passed, nothing is quite so dead on
the stage as war.
There are just two things that
make "Humoresque interesting. One
is Fannie Hurst's study of Jewish
types, always beloved of New York.
The other is the manner in which
Lauretta Taylor makes one of these
types live.
True Drama Is Lacking.
Lack of true drama wrecks the
chances of success for the Equity play
ers with Roger Bloomer." In spite
of novelty and daring the play proves
flat and embarrassing because 1t has
no story with logical drive TO it.
The play is an attempt by an
American, John Howard Lawson. to
make one of those ".expressionistic"
dramas which some Of the new Ger
man playrights have turned out. The
novelty Of the thing lies in the fash
ion in which it is written and pro-
duced. The play consists Of thirty