The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-04-29
H|GH-BRON PLAYS PROVE POPULAR IN
 bR0ADW WAY HOUSES
Shakespearean Dramas Find Ready Audiences Among
 White Way Patrons

tASo0 fdOiNiiOSo HIitOlIS
 White Way Patrons
 NEW YORK. April 2S-The theatrl- cal season is toward the time when summer shows bloom and fade like sporting extras and critics compile their allstar teams from all the shows that have played the street since the antiquity of last August. It has been very earnest season with some bright frivolity and some cheap stuff. both serious and frivolous. worked into the pattern. Due partly to the better presentation of literary plays, and partly to a quickened appreciation of literary quality. the hitherto damning descrip tion. "highbrow." has ceased to in timidate the public or to terrify the producer. In fact. "highbrow" has slipped close to obsolescence. Billy Sunday may be caught using 1t any day now.
 It would not dc to call this the closing week of the season. because somebody would be sure to come along with another endurance record breaking bore like Peer Gynt" next week. There Is no 154game schedule and world series in the theatre. A season doesn't blow up at the end. but sort of peters out and som metimes runs into the next one.
 Those who hold that 1t Is very nice for a nation to be literary will deem it an encouraging commentary on the New York intellect that a play of Shakespeare's and a play of Shaw S were produced as late as this week. Generally, In the past, producers have been as shy as wild horses of serious stuff when the weather gets warm enough to leave the doors partly open and the corner traffic cops whistle adds a symphonious note to the or chestration.
 Shakespeare Presented
 On Shakespear's 359 birthday, the American National theatre, backed by the Producing Managers association n, produced As You Like It" with Mar jorie Rambeau IS Rosalind, Margalo Gilmore as Celia and Lee Simonson as the designer of the settings which out-arted the play. There is a strong tendancy to bat the literary quality of As You Like It" on ground that Shakespeare did 1t merely as pet boiler People who didn't know the man at the time. however can only say they liked it or didn't Because If layman makes a pass at Shake speare some professor will make a sucker of him. You rap Pontius Pi- late nowadays, and the party on your left will prove that he was only cir cult judge, administering the law ac- ct rdlng to the rules of evidence then obtaining.
 Therefore, "As You Like It" is a very excellent piece of poetry as far as we're concerned, and the company Is worthy of the play.
 On the same day that "As You Like It" opened, Jane Cowl gave special matinee of Romeo and Juliet" which has now eliminated all former dis
 tr oil tt7 along toward 200 per formances. Miss Cowl Is a beautiful Juliet" and her voice. which sings the very music of the living poem, is principal among her charms.
 Shaw Has Play Going.
 Shaw's "The Devils Discipline" was the final production of the theatre guild this season. It is satirical melodrama one of his earliest plays which was produced only once before In New York The Guild company was enriched at the last moment by Roland Young, whose job in Any thing Might Happen" folded up on him just in time. colonial New England in which a young man renounces the harsh, vengeful, threatening Christian God of the Puritans and makes his pray CTS to satan. his natural friend.
 The Guild produced this season R. U. R. the most thrilling melodrama we ever saw; "The Tidings Brought To Mary" a high-art thing as a show but a poem of entrancing beauty and ennoblng sentiment; "The Lucky One by Milne. an excellent drama in which the poor casting was responsi- he for the brevity of the run; Peer Gynt." reliable soporific with an appropriate cast, and now this play of Shaws. It has been the Guild s best season. and it has encouraged the Guild to enter the landlord busi- bond issue Is now being mark ted to finance the enterprise, but that is a real estate story.
 A casual reminiscence of this sea son, una assisted by notes, recalls many fine things Some of them failed for no discernible reason. $ The World We Live h." the so-called Insect Play" by the Capek Bros. of Prague. The Selwyns spent fortune on "Jo- names Kreisler." which was some thing new. revealing AZ scenes in flashes. short glimpses and full ge spectacles. The play it seemed, de served a fair chance in three acts and d feasible number of scenes, but it was sacrificed for mere scenic nov city Charming Pollocks "The Fool'' impressed many as a great thing, al though many others chaffed Pollock for believing in God. There were Ethel Barrymore in Rose Bernd," Johns Hamlet" Belasco's Merchant of Venice" and Jeanne Ea gles in Rain" And lately. Alice Brady has come along in an Arizona border play called "Zander the Great" in which she gives one of the best perform