Evening star., 1941-03-09

again to including the Iowa cities OF
Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Sioux
City and nearby Sioux Falls in
South Dakota, the long-distance
playgoing championship held by
Des Moines has been claimed by
other Western cities. much to the
evaporation of Mrs. Clark. Yet If
Davenport, hours away from Des
Moines, gets a show, it means that
more ardent playgoerS can come
from the State of Illinois without
going practically from the theater
to work the next morning, or to
preparing the breakfast for the
family.
No InnuendOs, Please.
There is, incidentally, sometimes
tempering of this love of the play
such as found its way into print
when The Philadelphia Story" with
Katharine Hepburn, recently played
in Sioux City and the reviewer
passed judgment. I'VE do not like
plays" he said, that depend on cuss
words and nasty innuendoes to ring
the bell. They make us fldgety, un-
comfortable, half ASHAMED OF our
selves for being within hearing dis
tance. Chick Sale died several years
ago and it is only fair that he be
allowed to rest in peace" Daven-
port Registered a similar lament,
that though there was a complete
sell-out, some 2.708 paid more money
to see this show than ever before
had been run up at the cash regis
ter for a single performance of a
legitimate attraction in this city,
yet there were too many 'hells' and
'damns' in the show"
This, the manager in Oklahoma
City, Helen Stern, could not under
stand, probably because she is only
% years of age, the youngest man
ager in the country, who whoops 1t
up amid the oil derricks of those
environs and drew from the land
between the preserves of Mrs. Robert
Boice Carson of Tulsa and William
Floto of Wichita, KanS., playgoerS
who paid just about $4,000 for a
matinee and night performance Of
the same play and read only raptur-
Gus notices the next morning. Yet
Mrs. Carson from her Convention
Hall in Tulsa stirred forth the play
goers of her part of Oklahoma to the
tune of s5,675 in one performance.
Not All the Comforts.
Playgoers like these are not tested
alone by distance or the braving OF
snow and sleet on these drives to
see a play. A further test OF what
genuine devotees they are is often
the discomfort of the only building
in their community in which they
can enjoy theater. Companies like
to 60 to Nashville, Tenn, not only
to meet the delightful Mrs. L. c.
Naff. but for the sheer adventure
in playing in what is really the
Union Gospel Tabernacle, 1891 AID.
For the actor, there must be re-
minder of the origin of drama to
be playing to an audience seated
closely packed in pews.
But the audience there can be re-
minded only of how much more
comfortable it is almost anywhere
else. Probably they are enchanted
at once with Mrs. Naff's uniquely
quaint mode of passing out her
tickets from a mans shirt box and
having toward the end OF her sale
a. great variety of odd tickets when
she might just as well have pairs.
Her statement of fact regarding this
is surely indisputable. Il tell my
public that the theater is not a
place to hold hands, but to see
Show, so, there's no need for people
to sit together" :"
An Opportunity to Be Met.
Even so, communities west and
south are astir with action to min
lister to this hunger for theater. The
newly opened municipal auditorium
in Little Rock, Ark. the opening OF
the auditorium in Jackson, Miss, to
touring attractions, and the almost
fabulous auditorium of Kansas City,
Mo, are merely instances of re-
sourceful action meeting public de-
mand. The spread of spontaneous
local initiative in the organization
of civic playgoers' groups pledging
themselves to support all plays that
reach their far-fung cities and the
interest of merchant retailers in
recognizing that lively theater is an
asset 10 a modern city point to the
fact that it is really up to Broadway
to meet a scarcely realized oppor-
tunity
With this revival of an enjoyment
that is as old as the human race
several distinguished players in re-
cent years have had, of course, much
to do. The persistent facing of the
rigors of touring by the Lunts,
Katharine Cornell, Maurice Evans
and Helen Hayes, who for four years
went up and down the land giving
her magnificent performances of
Mary of Scotland" and Victoria
Regina" before who knows how
many young folk enjoying their first
transport into the stages world of
make-believe is bearing fruit. For
such as they, playgoers somehow
rise out of space in the remotest CEN
ters and the good old days are here
again.