Evening star., 1936-08-16

tanning their local loyalty, are so 0uSy'
with varying California activities that
they have little time to complete their
promised New York show, and eminent
chorus directors, having sampled the
joys of presenting dance numbers on
'the epic scale of the cinema, feel that
they have gone Lilliputian when they
have only small Broadway stage to
manipulate their miracles upon. The
stage musical comedy faces the Gus
tomary problem Of having its best
performers and most promising new
comerS snatched from it by the blan-
dishments Of the screens argus-eyed
scouts. Chorus girls of the more
pulchritudinous type are difficult to
secure because most of them have
either left for Hollywood or are plan
ming to depart at the earliest possible
moment. 1t seems safe to say that
there will be only a limited number
of musical comedies available for the
frivolous playgoers this season.
Fortunately, however, such stalwart
composing teams as Rodgers and Hart
and Gilbert and Sullivan will be on
hand to help us out. AS long as Mr..
Rodgers continues to compose his
skillful and ingenious popular music,
Mr. Hart sticks to his hilarious versi-
flying and the eminent D'Oyly Carte
troupe brings the shades Of the two
great Englishmen to us with such
mellow warmth. there Is little reason
for despair. It is gratifying therefore,
to realize that the D'Oyly Carte COM
pany opens its season on the evening
of Thursday, August 20, with THE
Mikado," and that the Messrs. Rod
gers and Hart are ambitious enough
to plan no less than three productions
this year. And that, as it is time to
tell you, is by no means all. The
debonair Cole Porter may have been
having a gay time for himself in
Hollywood. but he hasn't forgotten us
and will be represented by a show
which may conceivably be called Red,
Hot and Blue" and which will have
book by those reliable joke-and-
romance men,. Russell Grouse and
Howard Lindsay. am told that the
songs will sound as delightful as the
ones in Anything Goes" when Miss
Ethel Norman starts singing them.
THEN there will be. Of course, the
vast musical comedy spectacle
called White Horse Inn," which has
been hesitating to cross the Atlantic
for almost half a decade and is said
to have grown prodigiously in the
meantime. 1t was. you may recall,
great success in both London and Ber-
lin. saw it several years ago in pre-
Hitler Berlin and it struck me at the
time as being lively. colorful and tune
full. as we'll as the possessor Of that
sort Of wistful appeal that is Gus
tomarily known as nostalgia" I
wonder, though, if the skillfully built
up entrance Of the late Emperor Fran
els Joseph Of Austria Hungary will
seem as stirring as 1t did before an
other Austrian began cutting a thea
trical figure in the German capital.
Anyway. it should be a pleasure to
see Jimmy Savo. that excellent. if
sometimes overrated. little comic in a
speaking role, even though Mr.. Savo's
recent encounter with Moliere in a
Summer theater was not a happy
event. My guess is that Moliere was
just about as much to blame as Savo
for that debacle.
Among the hints about the coming
season there is one which it is i'm
possible to track down, but which
gives pleasant note of yearning to
the year also. That is the report-and
I'm afraid that it Is not true-that
George M. Cohan might possibly be
persuaded to plan another of his in
comparable Cohan revues which set a
high note in theatrical travesty be-
fore America went to war and their
creator wrote "Over There" I don't
suppose that you. by any chance, re-
member the COhan Revue of 1916 and