Evening star., 1939-07-31

portray plain, even drab young
woman who falls in love with
Vienna's most popular leading man
and becomes the town glamour girl
to charm him.
And that is to be a test of Miss
Jewels artistry. This tall, blond
and exceedingly attractive lass is a
cinch for the glamour girl part of
the role-she can do it blindfolded
and with one hand tied behind her
But if she manages to look plain
enough that she convinces any male
in the audience that she is down.
right drab, we'll, that will be acting
Miss Jewels supporting cast in
"The Curtain Rises" will be headed
by Reginald Allen, the radio an
nouncer who appeared with her in
Biography" He plays the strug-
Cling young actor who helps make
glamour gal of Miss Jewel. Others
in the cast are Charles Grunwell
and Buel Patch, veterans of the
Cross Roads company; Mildred
Beach of the New Orleans Little
Theater and Mildred Baitz and For
ney Rankin, whom you have seen
in Washington Civic Theater pro-
ductions.
Melodramas, the kind the Road
side Theater revives for happy con-
noisseurs of bloodshed, mayhem, tor
ture and other miscellaneous forms
OF evil, had many sources. Some
were based on historical fact, others
on wild flights of what must have
been sadistic imaginations So two
aspirins and half glass of water
are the regulation dose to be taken
with the news from the Roadside
that its next production, Aurora
Floyd" or The Dark Deed Done in
the Wood is based on the work of
Victorian lady novelist That is, it
was Victorian lady novelist who
wrote Aurora Floyd not who COM
mitted the dark deed in the wood.
She was Mary Elizabeth Braddon,
who started her literary career at the
age of 10, when a printer, who new
of her ambition to be a novelist,
commissioned her to write for him
serial combining "the humor of
Dickens with the dramatic quality
of G. w. M. Reynolds. This Mr..
Reynolds was a writer of thrillers
and Miss Braddon filled the order
with a piece titled. Three Times
Dead" or The Secret of the Heath" :"
Quite girl was Mary Elizabeth.
Aurora, this later heroine of Miss
Braddon's, is quite girl, too A
proud beauty she is, by any stand
ards. When stable boy kicks her
pet spaniel she personally horse
whips him. When her first husband
turns up as trainer for her pres
ent spouse she wastes no time
in self-pity. She Immediately takes
steps to buy him off.
You may meet Aurora the unin-
hibited week from tonight when
she steps on the Roadside stage in
the person of Miss Betty Gray, fol-
lowing in the footsteps of such
famed actresses of the SOS and '70s
as Matilda Heron and Sophie Miles.
Richard Kreuzberg as her second
husband, Eugene johnson as her
father and Ephraim Jacobs as the
family butler are on Aurora's side
Every one else Is out to do the lass
dirt, including Harold Stepler, John
Sikken, Milton Freedman and
Natalie Core.
Everything is going to be all right.
We have it on the authority of the
Glen Echo Players, who are staging
Joseph Addison's Cato" August 2,
3, 4, and at the Glen Echo Play
house, just block beyond the
amusement park. although a
tragedy" say the groups spokesman,
the play has in it a suggestion of
hope for the Catos of the world
who will ever be defeated and who
are constant in the face of transient
dictators." Take that, Messrs. Hit
Ter and Mussolini, you transients.
Along with the straightforward
statement there is just bit of con-
fusion in this story from the Glen
Echo Players. Time, of course, has
confused lot of people, including
maybe even Einstein, but we GER
tainly can't figure it out when these
people maintain Cato" is a time
less play and in almost the same
breath report it enjoyed a favor
able run in England at the time of
WHERE TO DINE.