Evening star., 1938-10-02

Cowards among them and they
have his habit of writing plays,
not books, for which they might be
forgiven here, nor even movies, for
which they might be forgotten, but
plays in which mountain of literary
art labors over the production of a
mouse. Noel Coward, in case you have
not followed me thus far in what
amounts to single-handed crusade
against the earth, has always seemed
to me guilty Of much more artifice
than art.
In Dame Nature" Andre Birabeau
has followed the habit Of the latter
day Gauls when dividing life into
three acts. The divisions are made
dexterously. The operation is a beau-
tnul one, even to the anesthetic,
whose aroma Is food for the most
fastidious nostrils. But the patient dies.
Life isn't the same ever after. After
the skill, the sickness, the tenderness.
the most dazzling of fiourishes-then
what? Then anti-climax. The audi.
ence is left holding bag of bones
from which the wind has blown loose.
The Gauls are sensational that way,
and nobody would get angry-as no
one can get angry at the Hungarians
and their butlers-if it weren't that
they always managed to lavish their
fatal skills on life that seems worth
living.
There is compound to the felony
in this case. The play is the Theater
Guilds first production of its 2lst
season. 1t has been given an ecstatic
mounting. and the adaptation by
Patricia Collinge, beautiful and ac-
complished actress, measures up.
But the most vibrant of the dismays
must oe over the theme of Dame
Nature" The authors apparent in
tention was to show her as one who
sets things right. To this end. he has
taker wealthy family that is all
wrong.
M BRISAC is an engineer who dis
likes his wife with apparent
cause and refrains from divorcing her
FOR the sake Of their only child. Mime.
Brlsac is woman who refuses to
grow up. One meets her everywhere,
nuttering in public. meaning in pri-
vate over gray hair, watching with
dismay as her child grows into a tes-
timonial to her advancing age, trying
desperately to maintain him in a nur.
sery and thus working hardship on
him.
1t may be noted. parenthetically,
that. in the hands Of Jessie Royce
Lands, she becomes a pathetically
distasteful woman, and, as an odd.
ment. that her husband (Rex Smith,
the EDITOR led the applause for her
valiantly on the opening night as a
tribute to the triumph of art over
personality.
The hardship worked on the child
is that his home is barren. He is a
boy of Is, tall for his age and very
handsome, as Montgomery Cliff, a
graceful gift Of Omaha to the Broad
way stage, makes him. He finds COM
panionship with an orphaned and
lonely girl of his own age, they fall in
love and are mutually astonished
when baby arrives, very gently, white
the father is engaged in manipulating
toys at his birthday party, and, IN the
third act. the parents find out about
it. Dame Nature has her way in the
end. The boy is quite content to
take time of from his algebra to heat
the baby's milk. The parents mostly
the mother, find kind of maturity
meaning sweet reasonableness-ste
ing into their hearts.
All very nicely done and written.
But there are many things in the way
OF a portrait of Dame Nature as
gentle old lady beaming over her
knitting as she makes a disordered
world tidy. There is a substantial
stock Of literature, in libraries and
newspapers, to indicate the old lady
isn't very kind to those who get in
the way. Perhaps we could have for
gotten that if we hadn't had to dig
our way out of the aftermath of 4
hurricane to get to the theater. if
there hadn't been the cables from
Europe.
THE rest of the bill Of fare has
been made up of music inter-
spersed with legs. They are arranged
(see wOLFTRT, Page F-2J