The Washington times., 1932-10-03

radio made loud the air. turned out bad predictions
about the stock market So the stage may be GONZALES
cent. But hope denies that 1T has been SICK
Old Stuff and New
I amused to find the advertisement of AL Woods
new show THE Stork Is Dead using the terms of 1912:
"A spicy salad with very little dressing but can't be-
eve that the bedroom farce is permanent feature of
the theater. On the other hand, believe that people
who have the instinct of the heater will give life to it,
whether they be impassoned and thoughtful men like
John Howard Lawson, whose Success Story has ener
gized and stirred the critics, or showmen like Earl Car
roll, who seems to have judgment, little taste and
only the fantest idea of how to compose revue yet who
gets vitality and entertainment and kind of beauty into
every revue he puts on The latest Vanties hodge
podge of good and bad it has dull moments and
ngess ones but it keeps going and more or less keeps
you going. In show Carroll does stunt this time
it is chorus with wands which glow with light.
He likes color and mass movement He not to care
hang for music or wit
l haven't written much about the stage because have
been confined to quarters for 10 days and have
missed lot of shows. Ye looking backward the
last few years and forward to of the promised pro-
ductons think can see reason why the stage has to
fight hard to hold 1t is getting little too special
and the takles are as usual falling INTO the same rut
mean that the stage dramatizng crooners and gossip
writer's and newspaper reporters, and the taies
doing night and cab drivers and neither of them
remembers that what people interested IN is people
1t used to be said that the editor Of popular weekly
would look the world, discover a subject which
needed treatment and call in writer then he would say
Fctionize the file clerk angle for me- and the writer
would go away, interview few filing clerks, look at
cabinets and write story in which the business Of
l don't know if the story is true; l know that the
method does not produce good stories good plays
Dramatists with nothing to say look the of
"Broadway "The Front Page" and decide to do the
same by movie press agent bootegger second
footman. Dramatsts who have something to say start
with human being and find out that he is shopkeeper
or a clerk almost by accident.
If you want to the difference, compare BLESSED
Event. not at all bad show or wild Waves" not at
all good one, with Counsellor -atLaw, which is fair
average piece of work. The first two asking you
to interested because their chief characters gos
hT0oH Of off
studio and they could not interest you for minute But
in Elmer Rices play the lawyer above all, human
being and the fact that he lawyer altogether
an accident The accident let have comedy and
melodrama; but the main thing, with heart and
a mind, with a past and future we'll as active
present, gave play.
haven't heard of play the present economic
political situation suppose the stage has decided to
let all that go "Of Thee Sing the movies however,
are weighing in with "The Phantom President" Inas-
much as George M. Cohan plays the Candidate and
Jimmy Durante his manager, the result ought to be
funnier than the campaign has been to date.