Evening star., 1937-07-17
Effect Is Like Seeing
Malay Princess on
Church Steps.
BY IRA WOLFERT

FORT WORTH. Tex, July II
MAN A. ).-Rummaeing around in
the Southwest-range country, oil.
beeves, sheep, desert. neSters clat-
tering high heels awkwardlv down
cement walks. mountains. dust,
swamp, an inscrutable tangle o:
strong-armed brush, thousands OF
square miles OF land so fiat it lies
like griddle under the sun-you
come inevitably to Billy Roses Casa
Manana. 1t is little like seeing a
Malay princess standing sleek amid
incense on the wooden steps of the
Elm Street Church in Quincy, Mass.
This is no calliope show, but some
thing half a block long and three
stories high, and what the Rose has
done here is raise yet another monu-
ment to the popped eye It's Broad
way clear through. down to its be-
di2ened toes-or rather show that
Broadway's men dream as they sit
among their cluttered spaces and
high-rent theaters.
1t has Paul Whiteman and band.
Harriet Hoctor and toes, Everett
Marshall and vocal chords. and those
wriggly Hindu dancers, Sanami and
Michi. and arms. Even more blessed
ly, 1t has couple of hundred Texas
peaches, who bring luster as of sun
light to their work, massive settings
that are just plain reality itself and
costumes that raviSh the senses.
Scarlet on Tiptoe.
The cast tumbles with dispatch and
grace through four large-scale num-
bers. Once they do a cotillion before
columned Southern mansion that is
burned down by band of Yankee
soldiers in an effort to prove that
what you are really seeing is "Gone
With the Wind" Harriet Hoctor. the
ballet dancer, plays Scarlet OHara
on tiptoe
And once they luxuriate wantonly
through some Oriental mumbo jumbo.
enlivened by adagio dancing, all
called Lost Horizon" And once they
prance around grandly in riding habits
to prove that what the world needs to
do is Wake Up and Live" And,
finally, they shoot up and down in
elevators, ride around on rolling plat
forms. spread acres Of silk and fields
OF waving plumes to indicate that TT
Can't Happen Here''-"It" meaning
the knotty- -flsted indigestion Europe's
Italy. Russia and Germany are suf-
fering from.
The whole is performed lovingly
in theater that is as airy as a cloud.
Having seen most of the theaters that
lie in an eastward direction between
here and the Balkans, 1t is possible
to report with accuracy that there is
none more startlingly beautiful in its
bold simplicity than this blue and
white creation rising around an arti-
ficial lagoon dug into patch OF sandy
soil hard by the Trinity River.
They Refuse to Be Awed.
However, there is a sermon yearning
to be written around what the Rose
has done here for the frontier fiesta
and what Corinne Griffith and her
husband, George P. Marshall. have
done for the Greater Texas and PAN
American Exposition in Dallas, SO
miles to the East. Miss Griff1th has
devoted herself to the Pan-American
Casino, which was stocked-by Joe
Mielziner-with a corps Of Chester
Hale Girls, Stan Kavanagh, Borrah
Minnevitch and His Harmonica
Rascals. They 60 amiably and pro-
ficiently through the PAGES Of a slick,
big-time show, pleasing enough to the
most jaded eye.
The text for the sermon would b.
something appropriate about Stub
bornness. For the Rose and Miss Grif-
nth are stubborn folk who ref,,se to