The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-03-12
In ! New York
BY PAUL HARRISON

NcW I ol h AIICi Aohk ySSSAS OA triumphs and vicissitudes and eel estial fish-fries, '"The Green Pas lures" is doubling back on it's 14,- 0OO-mile trail so that De Lawd, Gabriel, Moses, or King Pharaoh and the rest of the/ big cast can spend a summer vacation in liar lem.
 One of the advance men already is in town, hanging around the office of Rowland Stebbins, the producer, and telling stories of the negro performers in the famous Marc Connelly-Roark Bradford fa- ble. When the play celebrated its fourth birthday in Athens, O., re- gently, it was the 1460th time that De Lawd. in the humbly devout person of Richard B. Harrison had "laked de earth like a nat 'chul man.. He and his people Canadian provinces and had won the Pulitzer prize. They'll go on the road again next season, and that.
 Bellhop to Actor
 On stage as we'll as off, Harrison is "De Lawd" of his sepia com pany. Once a bellhop, waiter, rail- road laborer, dramatic reader and teacher, he is 69 now, and has rocketed to world fame and wealth. He bears the same humil- ity toward his role, and still reads over his part twice before each performance to keep himself in the spirit of the play. Actors and company officials see to it that no visitor disturbs his meditations during the hour before curtain time.
 Performers still bring him their problems and disputes, and bor- row money from him too. ID. Lawd" is the easiest touch in the show, and nobody knows how he saved enough to buy two houses in Chicago. His sole personal ex- travagance was the purchase of a diamond ring; bought it, he said, because it's just like one he used to admire on the hand of restau-
 rant patron in Detroit when he was a waiter.
 Other members of the cast have been buying things too. By this time they're certainly the fanciest- dressed group of cofored folks this side of Jordan. And during the
 Boston engagement there was a great epidemic of car-buying.
 Eight sleek automobiles, complete with gadgets and mortgages, | choked the theater alley. J. A. Curtis. until recently the stage manager. did what he could to promote thrift. Found out all | about the family responsibilities ! of each performer and made most of them show him a money -order | receipt each Saturday night as 1 proof of having sent money home. When ROark Bradford drop- ped in on the play in Memphis and wanted to throw big banquet for the cast Curtis. | persuaded him to give them a couple of dollars apiece in- stead.
 In four years away from Har- lem there have been five mar | riages. And three deaths. First
 to go was Wesley Hill, the orig
 inal Gabriel, killed by a taxicab ! during the engagement in New | York. Samuel Davis, who sue
 ceeded him. laid down the shiny trumpet two years ago in Indian
 apolis. And Salem Tut Whitney died in Chicago recently. He was
 the one who argued with r'De
 Lawd" for the privilege of taking
 two kaigs' of liquor on the ark
 the better to balance 1t, he said.
 Theatrical Bars
 Theater owners are making in-
 dignant noises. through aparched
 lips, about the alleged unfair dis
 crimination of the state liquor con
 trol board. For the Metropolitan 1 Opera House has bar, and the
 legitimate theaters have none
 None in operation, that is. A. couple
 of optimists put in bars on the eve
 of repeal, but officials were ada.
 ment and nothing huskier thar
 sarsaparilla has been served ..
 By the way. the only strictly stag
 bar in town is, of all places, at thu
 Ritz-Carlton. It's duplication O
 the Ritz bar in Paris-Louis XIV
 style. with lots of gold and teak
 wood and Bachanale of cupids
 Rather sissy cupids, too; not in thu
 least reminiscent of saloon days. | -l