Evening star., 1933-09-03

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No small part Of the evenings amuse-
ment was due to the accurate and en-
gaging playing Of Edward Raquello as
the guileless young Italian. Helen
Lowell, Alice Fisher, Nancy Sheridan,
George Henry Trader and Bruce Evans
were others in the cast. Miss Miele has
made rather specially of pouncing on
plays which lasted but q short time and
picking up therefrom young or COM
paratively unknown players who might
be used advantageously in her own
pieces. She used more than 100 play
ers, for instance, in her Summer try
outs. rehearsing them thoroughly in
New York before presenting the play
at Summit, and then going over cast
and script again before considering the
piece ready for New York.
She Is believer in the value Of I'M
known players, and thinks that the
common habit OF relying ON names"
Is bad policy, If for no other reason
than that the latter are so likely to
be bought up by Hollywood Miss Mele
has had three years experience IN
Broadway producing. Her first venture
was City Haul" which she both wrote
and produced two seasons ago, while
last year she offered Best Year" !"
"Jamboree" and "Anybody's Game. :"
There is pretty definite notion on
Broadway that as producer this ener-
getic young woman is going to be heard
from.
THE only other Broadway novelty of
the week was The Blue Widow" a
comedy by Marianne Brown Waters,
with Queenie Smith heading It's cast.
be, -
were Murder With Music" by Hans
Rastede, at jackson Heights; On
Sleeping Terms" by the Hattons, at
Long Beach; The Door of Her House, :"
by Matthew Smith, at Neteong, N. j.;
yellow Freight" by Clyde North and
Robert Keith, at Matunuck, r. l.;
Here's to Crime" by Laurence Stall
lings, at West Falmouth, Mass; 1.-TWO
Can't Be Happy" by John Golden and
Charlotte Armstrong, at the Cape Play
house, Dennis, Mass: The Best Man" +"
at the Red Barn Theater, Locust VAL
ley; "A Joy Forever" by John v. A.
Weaver, at Pelham, and The Honor
able Johnsons," by Lester Cole, at
Summit.
THE London success, Ivor Novelties
"A Party" turned out to be not so
much play about Mrs. Patrick Camp
bell, as had been intimated in the ad-
vance notices, as quite literally party
"a stage representation of a theatrical
supper after a London first-night, with
several of the guests known artists and
played by themselves. Thus Mrs. Pat
rick Campbell appeared as her thinly
disguised self in the part of Mrs Mac
Donald" Miss Cecilia LOTUS played
Miss Lotus. And the Miranda Clay
foot" Gora Baxter) in whose honor the
party was given Is said to have been
patterned more or less after the per-
sonality and career of Miss Tallulah
Bankhead
For practically the whole Of the first
of the three acts there was little to sug-
gest a play in the ordinary sense Of the
word-simply the entrances of the
guests and bits of satiric byplay this
way and that. Miranda Clayfoot, en-
FAINT terrible that she was. viciously
snubbed the great Mrs. Macdonald.
Mrs. Macdonald patronized her younger
rival just as venemously and with as
much success The rival couturiers ar
rived both wearing the same dress
There were cracks at the critics. A
comedians wife had a brush with
former friend of the chorus who had
married into the peerage And so on.
X X
IT was all sprightly and amusing
L enough. and must have been more
so in the London production, where the
identity Of the various types was doubt
less more familiar to the spectators.
Such plot as there was concerned Miss
Clayfoot's effort to win back her former
lover, young Sir Philip Bay Clender,
now safely married to nice young girl.
The highty-tighty Miss Clayfoot wasn't
very seriously interested in getting Sir
Philip back. She wasn't very earnest