Evening star., 1932-10-23

Cdl IL dICl ll1GN Ill 1NCW VI n
didn't care for The Good
L Earth" To prove the fact,
however, that theatric opinions
are as various as flowers of the
field, the following is a brief sum-
mary of some of the wordage of
these distinguished gentlemen:
PERCY HAMMOND: THE
Good Earth is at least the bold
effort of valiant minds, and as
good a job as it seems possible
for dramatiStS to do. You
are made conscious of the essen
tial material of the tale through
out, and you regard with ad-
miration the elaborate accuracy
of the scenic minutae. I,
myself, confess to a slight discon-
tentment with Miss Nazimova's
impersonation, on the ridiculous
grounds that it is overconscier-
tious. It is all right for her to
be dull, ugly, and of the soil, and
this she is with appealing results.
But she seemed to me to groWl
rather than speak, employing the
utterances of an animal rather
than a slave"
GILBERT GABRIEL: Mime.
Nazimova's marvellous dumb show
behind a face as cnigmatic as a
Benda mask recaptllres all the
deep, inarticulate heartbreak and
unvaunted decency Of the peasant
woman of the book"
BROOKS ATKINSON: "'The
Good Earth is a complete failure
on the stage"
WALTER W1NCHELL: 1T is, to
be. sure, beautiful story, no mat
ter what part or parts of it you
hear-and the Guilders, particu-
larly ALA Nazimova and Claude
Rains, do much with their grace
; full theatres to make The Good
Earth a good show"
JOHN ANDERSON: 'They have
housed it in some excellent
, Simonson settings and put at the
head of its cast the ineffable
Nazimova as O-Lan, and left Mr..
Moeller to wave it all to life with
his baton. Except for a few scat
tered scenes nothing happens. Ex-
cept for some isolated moments in
Nazimova's performance it has no
magic. 1t. is slow, ponderous, un-
dramatic and solemn"
x X X
THE above will give you a
rough hint that great minds
do not work alike. These renowned
gentlemen of wit and wisdom,
whose approval is considered
necessary for the success of any
embryonic theater enterprise and
whose dictum is more to be de-
sired than gold, feel about as
much alike on this subject as
might Solomon's numerous wives.
One critic praises Mr.. Simonson's
settings to the skies, another
roasts them as being deadWood;
one gentleman is wild with Joy
over Mr.. Winchells "Alla, be
praised" and another says "her
acting subsidies into tortureSome
grimaces and her speaking be-
comes series of primordial
sounds"
The result, then, is what? 1t
only goes to prove that a critic is
no more of an infallible gauge
than is one of these neWfangled
Weigh-for accent scales. He says
what he thinks-and if he thinks
according to the way you think.
YOU set him down as grand. II
he disagreeS with your after the
ater reflections, he is a boor and
q rogue.
Therefore, even if one is at odds
with such a we'll groomed liter
ary expert as Mr.. Atkinson for
"heaving" into "The GOO d
Earth" there is no use in being
angry, since his thought was
probably based on much finer
emotions than were your own.
Then, again, he may have eaten
too much dinner, or you may not
have eaten enough-With the re-
suit that there is no common
ground between you.
However, it seemed to us that,
while "The Good Earth" was "slow
paced" it was nevertheless so
much more worthwhile than most
of the modern pieces of sin and
violence and so much more ad-
inirable in the construction of it's
atmosphere and tempo, that while
it did not bolt you out OF your
seat, you were genuinely moved
and some times even excited.
What more can a play do, which
does not set out to be either an
uproarious comedy, or satire on
crime, politics or parlor- bedroom
and-bath? z,