Evening star., 1933-05-14

"HERE are molcatlonS tnat tne
Pulitzer jury is agin the Gov
ernment, since last year and
this it awarded its premium to
plays upbraiding the Nations
helmsnen. "Of Thee I Sing" of course,
is a jocular rap upon the shins, but
Maxwell Anderson's "B 9th Your
Houses" tears into the lawgivers with
a sane, crusading vehemence. Many
play-students contend that the present
in conditions at the Capt.
tai Is due to the influence of Messrs.
Kaufman and Ryskind's pasquinade-
that it awakened the Republic to a
sense Of its magistrates infertorit1es.
Now that Both Your Houses" has
has started ON q missionary tour, 1t
may not be too much to expect that
Washington soon will be paradise OF
hands unstain'd, uncorrupted hearts
and comprehensive heads" all exert
ing themselves for their country's veal.
Give the drama chance, it has been
said, and it will stir the souls of peas
ants and princes to do such feats OF
reformation that they will make the
world honest and bring doomsday near.
A law will then have been enacted by
the Senate and House in Congress as
sembled to change the name OF the
Potomac to the Jordan, and on the
holy hillock Of the Capitol saints In
glory will sing legislative hosannahs
to q happy land.
wish that the Pulitzer assizes
could have handed down its decree in
favor of Both Your Houses" little
earlier in the season. Although some OF
the most eloquent Of us drama re-
viewers argued earnestly on its behalf,
bA v,,,I.l w
appeal. While playgoers took our ad-
vice and attended Strike Me Pink" in
large numbers, there was at Both Your
Houses" what Mr.. Lardner might call
an array Of empty benches. The spon-
soring Theater Guild must have been
discouraged by this lack Of co-Opera-
ton, and Mr.. Anderson, no doubt,
brooded and said to himself, whats
the use? have made good show. a
pleasant preachment, q needed and
palatable sugar-pll, and yet they won't
take it." The play fingered along, pa
tronized only by the guilds Subsidizing
drama fans. until Messrs. Clayton Ham,
ilton, Austin Strong and Walter Prich-
ard Eaton pronounced from the Puiit-
ger bench the decision that Both Your
show. Their decision was published Fri
box-ofi1ce receipts were doubled. Sat-
urday afternoon and Saturday even
ing the takdngs were increased three
fold and Both Your Houses" had been
suddenly transformed from q defeat in
to victory as it retreated, unconscious
Of its medals, to Philadelphia and other
safer and more intelligent and appre-
ciative frontiers.
am glad that the Theater Guild
wins this belated Pulitzer bonus be-
cause 1t Is the cleverest, If Mr.. Moeller
and Miss Helburn will forgive that
obnoxious compliment, the cleverest and
most alert and brilliant of the dido
salesmen. They have been at bat, as the
President would say, five times this
season, and have made but one hit
and that, the unofficial scorers tell me,
is a scratch. They bungled 'The Good
Earth" as any showmen would have
bungled 1t; they made an eager mess
Of American Scene" and all of these
chances were taken, to use White
House phrase, In the interest OF the
team. But in q smart, naughty frivol
like Mr.. Behrman's Biography" aided
by the irresistible forces of Miss Ina
Claire, they have managed to hold the
moderate interest Of the frenzied
drama-lovers the guilds latest ad-
venture, last weeks, ''The Mask and
the Face" suspect, was undertaken in
q mood Of desperate speculation. In a
translation by Mr.. Vaughan from the
fruity italian Of Mr. Chiareln, it deals
in ribald heaviness with comic funer-
ais and death rites, adulteries and
requiems, o difi1cult combination. Any
adult playgoer who has one foot In the
grave and who Is thinking seriously
of executors, wills, worms, graveyards
and eternity, WILL fear, be not pleased