The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-12-06
WORLD Of THE
THEATRE
A Jazzed-Hp Spanish Folk
Tale

LlC
REVENGE WITH MUSIC, a must
cal play, featuring Charles VIM
ringer, Libby Holman and George
Metaxa. Book, lyrics and music
by Howard Dietz and Arthur
Schwartz; at the New Amsterdam
Theatre.
Reviewed by
ALAN CHUMLEY
"pEVENGE With Music" is not, as
II its title might suggest, either a
lavish girly girly show with touch
of melodrama or a smart" revue,
as past performances Of its creators
might well prompt one to think.
It's an attempt on the part of the
makers Of "Threes A Crowd" and
"Bandwagon" to write full-fledged
comic operetta. And having had
the shrewdness to equip themselves
with a lusty old Spanish folk-tale
(novelized by Pedro A. De Alarcon
under the title of THE Three Cor
nered Hat'C, they've turned out
something which without that solid
base might we'll have been a whole
lot worse.
You couldn't spoil as droll a tale
as this completely. 1t relates how
an ugly miller found his buxom and
bedimpled spouse Communicated by
the bawdy city magistrate land
himself not accidentally arrested)
and how he then contrived to shake
his bonds and wresk a just and
quite piquant revenge upon his over
lord by returning in kind services
rendered. And though the present
set of Broadway jongleurs play fast
and loose with the story, it is still
at bottom the work of the Spanish
toilers; it still has a robustness, a
truth and a universally which they
alone could give it; it still comes
out smiling.
Dietz and Schwartz, as might have
been expected, play the story down
and give it many revue features.
There are dancing ensembles, solo
dancers, vocal choruses who come
on and off in alienation with the
story scenes and while they afford
"chicness" and flash" add little to
the richness of the fable. To meet
the starring" needs of Libby Hol-
man Cbut for whose split tonsil we
should never have had 'moanin'
low'), the roguish, vivacious peasant
of the folk tale is wrenched into
the brooding pseudo passion Of
torch singer; the ugly but genuine
miller becomes for the needs Of
Charming" George Metaxs, cute,
imitation Maurice Chevalier; and
the lecherous, stupid gobernadOr is
vulgarized by Charles Winninger,
the Captain Andy of Maxwell House
Showboat. into mugging purveyor
Of slap-stick. Only the elegant Ilka
Chase. playing the gobernadora,
gives her part the crisp gayety, the
polish, the keen spice of subtle mis-
chief that the part demands.
/ NI1G IiluolS 10 a ClOSo DCbWccll IIl6
i lyric flow of operetta and the
trickier melodies of the flrst-rate
popular songs. Arthur Schwartz has
always been among the better. more
sophisticated, more additionally
musical ballad composers. On the
whole, however, this is no inspired
score on either count. Libby Hol-
mans featured when You Love
Only One" will undoubtedly main
tain its two months on the air, and
Bing Crosbie will lisp far too many
times IF There is Something Love-
lier Than You: but neither Of
them will achieve the relative inn
mortality of IAN old standby" be-
cause they're not made for dancing
by. There are two novelty songs
with mild cleverness: Never
Marry a Dancer" adroitly inter-
weaves an illustratory bit of Spanish
heel work into the rhythm of the
lyric; and MY Father Said is a
microscopic scherzo which never
gets around to telling what her
father said. That Fellow Manu-
ello," lifting number, has a bit
of simple good fellowship. But OF
honest, rousing. buoyant, infectious
and authentic folk music, there ap-
pears not a trace.
The folk tale underlying 1.-THE
Three Cornered Hat" is work
ers' anecdote in a jocularly ribald
vein. Written with this point of
view it is not without its social bass.
But workers and workers only will
catch its true spirit and they alone
will be able to write and sing it with
the fine intimate likeness to its
source that 1t calls for. When the
Soviet of Asturias is but one of a
thousand soviets in the Spanish
Union, The Three Cornered Hat
will give uproarious if somewhat
reminiscent laughter.