Evening star., 1934-04-22

JuSt as Was dDOuL 10 IclOIul anu
to abandon the "best-ten" vice, along
came Ward Morehouse, drama editor
and one of Broadway'S most insidious
voices, with request to tell him what
ten plays in my excursions most en-
raptured me. In answer to his exten-
sive questionnaire he had received
reports from drama-lovers of all sorts
and temperatures, from Justice Cor
rigan to Phillip Moeller; and he was
anxious, so he said, to pick up other
impressions here and there. Although
I thought it selfish of Mr.. Morehouse
to ask me to work for him, reluc-
tantly consented to send him the fol-
lowing items, indicative of the dramas
which have given me, as man and
boy, the most lucrative thrills:
Peter Pan"-(Barrie and Miss
Maude Adams).
THE Green Pastures"-(Marc Con-
nelly).
"Loyalties Galsworthy).
"Hindle Wakes''-(St. John Har-
kim.
"Trelawney of the Wells"-(John
Drew and Pinero).
What Price Glory"-Gawrence
Stallings and Maxwell Anderson).
Riders to the Sea"-(Synge and
the first Abbey Theater company.
Rain Jeanne Eagels, John Col
ton and Somerset Maugham).
Coquette"-(M Helen Hayes and
others.
Ghost" it was played years
and years ago by pioneer Muscovites,
including Nazimova before she could
speak the English tongue).
If Mr.. Morehouse were less rigor-
ously a ten-man, he might let me add
TO my inventory of pleasures such boy
hood joys as Mr.. Cohan's Seven Keys
to Baldpate," Augustus Thomas
Arizona" John Barrymores Hamlet
and David Warfield's Shylock. And,
at that, suspect have left out the
best of all the great shows-the Nor
riS Gest-Otto Kahn Max Reinhardt
production of THE Miracle
4
MARX BARRON, drama critic of
AA The Associated Press has asked
me to make a calendar of the ten best
actors in the world, an easy order
which I hasten to fulfill, as follows:
Henry Hull, George Cohan, Walter
Huston, viii Rogers, Leslie Howard,
Robert Lorraine, James Durante, Clark
Gable and two others whose names I,
for the moment, have mislaid. The
Editor and Publisher, organ of the
journalists, suggests by wire that I
recommend ten Broadway entertain
ments that might tickle the delegates
to the current newspaper mems an
nual convention during the off hours
when they are at ease. I give them
Mary of Scotland" Sailor, Beware!"
"She Loves Me Not" Her Masters
Voice" the hospital melodrama Men
in White" Jerome Kern's seductive
Roberta" the heartless and funny
musical revue, LAS Thousands Cheer"
the Shubert-Z -Ziegfeld Follies tfor men
only) and Tobacco Road"
If this fashion persists probably I
shall have to make list some day of
the ten dramatists that I should not
like to be left with upon desert island.
When and if that crisis comes, shall
choose the following playwrights as
among those with whom I feel that 7
might, if left alone with them, be mis-
cradle.
Sidney Howard, Eugene ONeill,
A. E. Thomas, Bernard Shaw, the Sif-
tons, John Wexley, Robert Sherwood,
S. NJ Behrman and the two paciflst
Yale men who wrote the angry Peace
on Earth" an argument for hatred
and warfare.
A MONG all my Ht'r'y acquaintance
there is none whose happiness in
the sheer enjoyment of his art envy
so much as I do that of Don Marquis.
He writes plays con amore, if my Por-
tugueSe is correct, caring more for his
own and his intimate friends pleasure
in them than he does for that of what
may be called, behind their backs, the
rabble. The understanding dramatist
who wrote The Old Soak" which
should be but is not a classic, Mr..
Marquis has ventured several times
upon the Stage, disastrously. His more
serious pearls have been cast upon
such swine as New York audiences