Evening star., 1938-03-02


fiance of established play writing. The
Civic Theater dares to produce the
play for the edification Of Washington
audiences. The attitudes Of play
wright and theater are not vastly diff
ferent. Both are defiant, expert
mental. So today Is day for espe-
cially admiring the Washington Civic
Theater.
Johnny johnson" is a play that
deals with war. Obviously it has a
peculiar timeliness More timeliness,
indeed, that it had last year, when its
primary appeal was to that limited
number Of those who were willing to
examine international conflict with
detachment.
Johnny johnson" is an epic of the
American philosophy as it tells the
story of the last war. Johnny is a
symbol The opening of the last war
finds him believer in peace. But
when war has been declared and his
girl wants him to be hero, there is
nothing for him to be but soldier.
Mr.. Green as a. talented, if Sardonic,
playwright did not propel Johnny into
the conflict on the simple basis of a
yen for heroism. Johnny goes, not
entirely through vanity, but because
he has become an idealist through
reading the speeches Of those who see
the World War as a struggle to end
war.
Almost Immediately war becomes
silly enterprise to him. He cannot be-
lieve of it anything he has heard or
that any one else has thought. He
meets German soldier, discovers that
he likes the supposed enemy and con-
nives with the latter to bring an end
to the struggle in which neither be-
lieves.
In this fashion Mr.. Green reduces
war to the simplest possible terms,
conflict between two individuals who
really like each other. Once they dis
cover the liking, conflict seems silly
Just how silly and how logical it all
Is, the Civic Theater will attempt to
prove in its next play. It is no easy
thing to do, this play of Mr.. Green's.
That the local group will undertake it
testifies not merely to an ambition to
tackle the unusual, but to present a
play of particular timeliness-of more
timeliness than it had even when it
provoked so much critical attention in
New York last year.
F.. Cowles Strickland. who is di-
recting Johnny Johnson" hereafter
must be recognized as a gentleman
who does not take the easiest way
even when the harder way holds such
possibilities of Illustration and defeat.
In every respect it is difficult play
to produce. But the Civic Theater
completely unabashed by that circum-
stance. Johnny johnson" will be its
next production.
**
A SAMPLE of what Washington has
In store for 1t next month when
the road company of Pins and
Needles" comes here will be presented
tomorrow night at the Mayflower.
Only Department of Labor employees
and their guests will see the specimen,
but they will have opportunity to dis
cover just what it is that has made
the Labor stage so bright an addition
to Broadway this year. The road COM
pany will give full reproduction of
the sardonic musical within the next
so days =. Harry Anger, the Earle's
new production director, will be guest
of honor at luncheon which Warner
Brothers will stage today Just
when Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs" will have run its local course
remains one of the unsettled items of
the moment. When it ends. however,
the public can expect Bringing Up
Baby" at Keith's. The latter, an
other one of those berserk comedies,
has Katharine Hepburn, leopard and
Cary Grant in the starring roles . i
Gladys Swarthout, who comes next to
the Capitol with John Boles in "Ro-
nance in the Dark" is credited with |
being one of the two opera stars who
contributed most to the populariza-
ton of good music in pictures i
Tommy Kelly, who is the Bronx lad
starred in Tom Sawyer" is going
right on to new 1aurels in the pic
ture business. He and ann Gillis, his
co-star in the Twain story. will ap-
pear in another film, "Heartbreak
Town." which now is under way at