Evening star., 1932-10-16

f versity of their lives and works
with relaxation Of q trifine
character. Tail pillars OF
state, literature. finance. engineering
and whatnot often bend to lowly pos
lures, finding therein relief from theiI
monolithic attitudes They fish and GO
to base ball games and circuses. They
flv kites, solve crossword puzzles, play
croouet. golf and horseshoes or oulti-
vate the bafiing and useless flora and
fauna. Numerous are their efforts to
escape from deep deliberations con-
fining brassieres. History tells us that
Gladstone pillowed himself in his of
moments on police fiction, and that
Woodrow Wilson unfurrowed his
troubled brow by going to vaudeville
shows Only the other day I saw the
chairman of a large and serious New
York bank chuckling over Ballyhoo,
the most ribald of the magazines, on
a Long Island railway train bound Tor
Southampton. The sight recalled my
surprise when years ago. returning from
the peace conference upon a troop ship
with the colossal j. P. Morgan, l DIS
covered him clayfooted and lost be-
tween the covers of shallow crime
novel. written in words OF one syllable.
Equipped by those personal and more
or less vast experiences with the un-
corsetted TitanS in their vagarles ana
caprices, I can understand why SO
earnest an artistic as Miss Cathrine
Cornell should devote her theater, the
Belasco, to a performance OF loose
murder prank by the late Edgar
Wallace. 1t enables her, perhaps, to
rest between the innings OF her pure
nd n
though she is, for the moment, the flTst
actress, she still Is human. I can see
few other reasons for the production OF
Criminal At Large" Since Mr.. NC
Clirtic. Miss Cornell's husband and
entrepeneur, endows it with little OF the
deceitful magic essential to seances OF
the kind. 1t is merely complalsant
huddle of theatrical jackstraws and toy
building blocks. not skillfully assembled
But it reclaims the charmful Miss
Alexandra Carlisle from politics OF the
theater, and it introduces Emlyn
Williams. a shrewd, crafty and intelll-
gent mime from oxford, whose I'M
personation of gentle cryptic maniac
fortifies me in my belief that in act
ing we should buy British.
THE big playwrights have been
rather neglectful this season, pro-
yiding us with few masterpieces. How
ever, Miss Rachel Crothers, the Graf
tiest. smoothest, most intelligent and
conscientious Of American dramatlsts,
arrived last week in what the boys
call the nick of time with a grave,
expert and amusing comedy entitled
when Ladies Meet" 1t was an in
Simultaneous hit" and it caused us to
be reconciled to the disloyalty of such
deserters as Anita Loose and John
Emerson; George Kelly. Sidney Howard.
Samuel Shipman, Claiming Pollock,
Lawrence Stallings, Maxwell Anderson
and the bright fellow who wrote Brief
Moment" Nevertheless, Miss Gladys
Unger is at hand with phony parade
entitled Mona in which Miss Leonore
Uric is allowed to exhibit her abundant
art as a European hoofer, dancing.
flirting. loving and SHINING from Ho-
boken to the Golden Gate. Miss Ulrfc
wallows gracefully and illusively in the
pretty pig-pen built for her by Miss
Unger, and if you are interested In
the romances of elegant swine, Mona"
Miss Uric and their playful accom-
plices are a fair to middling invest
ment. Miss Unger's play resounds with
smart and calculated rhetoric's hollow
rattle. but I hesitate to recommend it
to lovers Of the drama, earnest or
otherwise. Mona is Miss Peggy
Fears production, and as such it de-
serves consideration.
x x
T P. McAVOY, author Of "Ameri-
~ cana" rebukes me for being abb
sent from the birth of his new extrava-
ganza and is especially reproachful be-
cause, he says, am responsible for
its creation. In dispatch from the
Shubert Theater he reminds me that
once 1 chided him for the triviality
of his public humor, and urged him to
combine his empty clowning with bold
raillery against the follies of the times.
He says 1 informed him that the func-
ton of revues is not only to distract
men from sad meditations. but also
to surgeon error and stupidity with the
gay lancets of satire. Goaded thus by
nv squirting words he set to work
with Mr.. Shubert's kind assistance and
constructed Americana" in accordance
with my specifications. That I was not
present to see the consequences fills
Mr.. McAvoy. if not Mr.. Shubert, with
gloom. He thinks that amends should
be made by the publication of his own
impressions of the result. Therefore,
opportunity is given to hear him in
his cause, and If he pleads it not
Alright I shall take it up with the
DramatiSts' League. The reckoning be-
low comes, then, from an authoritative
source. and while it is not to be guar
anteed, neither is anything else in show
business
Dear Percy: looked around for you
on the opening night Of "Americana'
and discovered, to my sorrow. you pre-
ferred the myrrh of the hospitals to
the Hyssop of Broadway. you can
see what just thinking about you does
to me- But cannot bear to let things
go at that. I am afraid now you may
not get a respite from your prisons and
SO will miss seeing a racy rigadoon,
purged here and there with what Ben
Bernie would call bit of ye good old
beauty and terror
First and foremost is the dancing,
such dancing as you have never seen
In revue, and l may say right now l
HANCINE