Evening star., 1939-02-05
Shakespeare
Is EverGOOd
Business
Maurice Evans Now
Scores Again as
Falstaf
By Ira W0Jerf.
By Ira Wolterf.
NEW YORK.

NEW YORK.
To the producers along Broadway
Shakespeare has come to be known
as Is per cent Willie" He is a
safe man to do business with. If
you don't want to get either rich or
poor, out just want nice whirl Of
activity and a return of your money
with slightly more interest than a
bank would pay, then per cent
Willie is your man.
"All you need" a producer tells
me. 'is some one to say the words
loud enough" And there is a long
list of recent Shakespeare failures
Tallulah Bankheads Antony and
Cleopatra" Estelle Winwood's "Mer-
ry Wives of Windsor" first Walter
Huston and Brian Aherne in
"Othello," then Philip Merivale and
Gladys Cooper in "Othello,' Leslie
Howard's Hamlet" and a rather
effective if ineligible "As You
Like Ito prove that, when you
don't say the words loud enough,
you are in trouble.
"The words" says this most sue
cessful of recent Shakespearean pro-
ducers, "are the thing. Poor, starved
people in this world If you get
Shakespeare's words said for them,
they think the production is won-
derful. They think a miracle has
happened
Up to this week that seemed a
reasonable explanation for the phe-
nomenal acclaim with which Maui
rice Evans has been greeted here.
But this week Mr. Evans made the
transition from Hamlet to Sir John
Falstaff in the first part of Henry
w." and, although it may be a
little annoying to those with other
favorites to hear it said quite so
often, the time has come to say it
again: He is the greatest actor now
living.
No doubt you understand such a
phrase, as applied to so subjective
a creator as an actor, has no mean
ing except as measure of the en-
thusiasm the actors performance
has stirred. In my time, don't
believe I have called more than one
or two other actors "the greatest
now living" while even those with
longer times have not sent that
phrase soaring for more than six
or seven contemporary actors. When
an actor can compel reviewer to
make a fool of himself right out
in, yo,,kN1in fha,, hn SC hniry
indeed-perhaps the greatest in our
time.
What is particularly memorable
about Mr.. Evans performance is
the change that has come over his
voice. AS Richard II, Hamlet, Ro-
meo and even Napoleon, this young
Englishman spoke in a ringing
tenor, so ardent and resonant that
the air in the theater literally
quaked under its impact. Now, sud-
denly, for Falstaff, he has acquired
fat voice. A hearty, beefy, smack
ing, gurgling uproar burbles from
his lips, fills the theater again.
makes each syllable crystal clear and
yet manages to have that extraordi-
nary quality familiar in healthy fat
men-the quality of beer pouring.
His makeup. too, is quite ex-
traordinary. From slender man,
spry and trim, he turns himself into
man born to waddle. 1t isn't
done with padding-though padding
has its part in it-nor is it done by
arranging the false hair around the
face in such manl.er that the face
actually seems to be large and thick
and to emerge from large. thick
body. The point is to learn to live
with these materials and fabrics SO
that you do not play them false.
An actor can make the most gro
tesque balloon of belly seem his
by the way he pats it.
With so fine performance, the
play speeds along like the great
event that it Is. For Henry W. is
one of the really fine works of the
| languages greatest writer. II it
weren't for Sir John, it would be
Hotspur who would get all the at
tention. Hotspur is one of the great
characters of our literature. and
Wesley Addy, young man who has
been hiding his virtues in minor
roles, plays the part in the current
production with hot spur. Crinkle
he has and dash and vigor, and,
with Edmond OBrien to make
something attractive Of Prince Hal
and Henry Edwards to give dignity
and authority of the King, Falstaff
does not lack for the contrast he
needs.
1t takes a production like the cur
rent one, an artful production illu-
minated with talent, to demonstrate
what every generation seems to have
to discover anew-that is, that
Shakespeare is modern. When one
(See WOLFERT, Page F-2)