Evening star., 1939-02-28

and back East as far as Baltimore
AL the long run, which was mighty
profitable because the people in the
provinces loved Miss Hepburn, de-
bate ragged as to whether the pro-
duction should 60 to New York.
The negative won. Every one in
volved was quite unhappy about it.
Now everything is pleasant again.
Miss Hepburn finally has play by
the dramatist whom she always has
regarded as closest to her playing
meter. At least, that is what it mas
seemed, for Miss Hepburn always has
been trying to get in Philip Barry
drama-and never succeeding. One
shot was for the lead in '"The Animal
Kingdom" the spicy old thing. Miss
Hepburn missed the part by the
narrowest of margins. Then there
was Holiday She was even closer
to success in that, outwardly at least.
She got the job as understudy. but
the star was so bursting with health
and vitality that Miss Hepburn just
sat and sat, and if she brooded who
was to blame her? She did play
Linda in the movies, remember, and
came so close to winning the years
best performance award that it must
have made the original producers
feel silly for keeping her on the
bench for the New York run.
In THE Philadelphia Story" Mr..
Barry is back in that bright, merry
and sardonic style of his. In his
other play this season, Here Come
the Clowns" he was hardly recog-
nizable by old admirers, who for-
getting he was Irish) never thought
he would turn dark and despairing
about life and people. But Mr.
Barry has turned around, Miss Hep
burn finally has the lead in Barry
play and everything is too happy
for words-of which there probably
have been too many already.
X X X X
Mickey Rooney's moping Straight
from Hollywood comes the tale,
which. of course, has not the slight
est relationship to the fact that his
picture "Huckleberry Finn opens
Friday at the Capitol.
Mickey's morbidity, it seems, is an
offshoot of the fact that people in
the film colony are calling him Gin
derella." They are calling him Gin
derella, of course, not because he
looks like her, but because his sue
cess story and hers are fairly
precise parallel. That all has been
explained to Mickey, but he still does
not like it. To him. Cinderella was
a sissy, and he would like to sock the
author of the fable, not to mention
the people who call him by its
heroine's name.
X X
The British censor, one of the
hardest persons in the world to get
around, sometimes does lose an
argument. He lost one on "Tri-
umph," the much-discussed picture
which comes to Pierce Hall for its
American premiere on Saturday.
The chap who left the censor one
down in the controversy is L. w.
Fearn, who is in Washington in con-
nection with the films showing. Mr..
Fearn not only devised, produced
and directed Triumph" but he also
plays the role of Christ in it. That
part was the one to which the
censor said no, saying it on the basis
of an ancient regulation which for
bids the depletion of the role on the
stage. That started something, one
of the warmest controversies on rec
ord, and one in which Mr.. Fearn
had all the religious leaders and
secular press of England on his side.
The censor, a stubborn fellow, held
out long time but the pressure
finally became too great. So now
every one gets to see Triumph"
X X X
Gypsy music of the kind over
which Bruce Lockhart always gets
20 madly lyrical in those books of
his is what Marusia Georgevskaya
is singing for Troika patrons
She started last night, will continue
indefinitely, and lives up to that new
high in enthusiasm which Helen
Hamilton achieved the moment she
was able to get the name George
vskaya on an agreement That
duck which was Normandy Farms