The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-12-02
EVERYTHING NOW |S ON BROAD WAY
Theatrical Offerings Run The Gamut From Barrymore's
 Hamlet To Girls
By WESTBROOK PEGLER IenSed Wire fO Tho ~e-HeraId


 NEW YORK, Dec. 1-In a 60-cent taxi ride from Thfrty-fourth street on the far West Side, where men are gangsters. to Columbus Circle, where the Century theatre lords it over little Daley's, one mile of everything there is in the drama, from Shakespeare to Miller and Lyles, including touch of the Scan dinavian in "The Swedish Ballet"
 In that stretch all the royal Bar rymores are now employed at pretty good jobs. Otis Skinner is light and gay in "Sancho Panza" and Signora Eleanora Duse, no longer sensa- ton in the thrill-am minute city, is sticking to her contract for a stated number of performances in New York before going on her last tour of the United States. Of late, also, that territory has embraced the Shake Marlowe and the company of Sir John Martin Harvey, which gave tone to an already toney season in a repertoire of Shakespearean and ancient Greek plays.
 Seen All To Be Seen.
 Thus. one month before Christmas, New York has seen about all there Is to see, not to mention some things which Fred Stone, the pious comedian, whose prices went up on Army Navy Day, deems unfit to be seen. MT. Stone, it may be recalled, uttered a complaint not long ago concerning certain productions which he would not do the honor of nam ing, on the ground that they were too rich in smutty content. The same night fThe Follies" sold out and so did Florence Reeds "Lulla- by and Earl Carrolls "Vanities," :" Il, 5r ness the exaltation of the human form.
 The headstrong John Barrymore, who. wrenched his Hamlet" out of New York, where 1t had become i'm bedded last spring. and went abroad, content with his record of 101 per formances, which bettered Booths old run by one "soliloquy," returned this week to the Manhattan. This is the enormous plant that poor Oscar Hammerstein set down on West Thirty-fourth street amid warehouses and decadent brownstone dwellings in the erroneous belief that New York s tides of frivolity would soon wash that way. The tides, instead, swept northward, and the Manhattan was compelled to take in such occasional boarders as the Masked Marvel' and his associate wrestlers, the Chicago opera troupe, in order to pay the in- terest on the investment.
 O O O
 BnrrymOre's Greatness Fulfilled.
 At any rate, Barrymore. who all ways played to standing room when he was melancholy at a threatre of normal size last spring, has now found house that even his Hamlet" cannot fill. The mans greatness is established and the role now fits him as evenly as his epidermis but, like a quarter cigar in a ten-minute in remission, the Manhattan is too big. There were Is vacant rows on the second night, whereas a few months ago, when he was about to close his first run as the Dippy Lane, scalp CTS could not supply tickets for his last few appearances, even at $25 each.
 Sister Ethel is still breathing life Royal Fandango," under the Hopkins auspices uptown, and brother, Lionel, the dramas Duke of York, is appear ing with his current wife, Miss Fen wick, under the house flag of Be- lasco, in Laugh, Clown, Laugh"
 Both John Barrymore and Duse will go on tour, playing a list of cities where the hotel accommodations are good, for limited number of per formances. both being immune to the base lure of profit. Some of the other entertainments are strictly local to New York.
 Meet The Wife" comedy which dips into farce, by Lynn Starling, and "In the Next Room" by Mrs. Bel