Evening star., 1941-04-22

plication, the playwright points out
that even a bad dream is workable
(see page -, whereas none at all
is kind of death.
Incidental to it's engaging, if not
especially novel, philosophy, Hope
for Harvest" presents the Marches
in a pair of properly ingratiating
roles. They are supported, moreover,
by an extremely competent company
of performers who make their more
or less symbolic characters ap-
plaudably lifelike That is a nice
thing to be able to do with symbols.
X X
The theme of Hope for Har-
vest" is that the spirit that made
America has atrophied. The pioneer
spirit. the willingness to accept the
challenge of hard work, has been
left to the immigrants; Europe's
peasants, who have taken the land
because they are not afraid Of
sweat and struggle and have not
learned to think of life as a pure
gift.
Miss Treadwell's protagonists are
former rancher who has sur
rendered his acres for a hunk Of
wasteland large enough for filling
station. For the right to dish out
gasoline to other Americans in
flight from toll, to eat out of cans,
to wear the uniform of shiftless-
ness, and to philosophize on how the
Dagoes have stolen the fruitlands,
he has given up the fight for life
that made his forebears happy.
The gent (March) and his fellow
California eX-ranchers with their
gas stations and hot-dog stands, who
differ from the OkieS, whom they
Scorn, only in that they remain
static while the Okies move, seem
destined to die of inanition. Miss
Treadwell takes care of that, how
ever, by the introduction of daugh-
ter of one of the pioneer families
miss Eldridge). She comes into the
play from a Europe which she just
saw die, and she brings with her
feeling that if only the old spirit of
work and sweat could be aroused,
things would be as once they were
before the machines, the Dagoes,
the Okies, etc.
To keep her play moving toward
its logical destination, Miss Tread
well introduces some effective Incl
dental characters. There is the
pretty daughter of the shiftless gas
station proprietor, a spirited, unin-
formed child who gets into "that"
condition through ignorance. There
is the spoiled son of another family
who is responsible for her plight,
and the idealistic son of the scorned
italian family who proves that fine
ness is an Unbeatable trait. There
Is also, and it is something to be
grateful for, the honest old italian
father who loves the soil only a
little bit more than he loves making
shrewd deal to get it away from
the Indifferent Americans. And by
way of covering types, the play
wright brings in an imperious Okie
who won't lay bricks because that's
skilled labor, and a potential house
maid who can't get on relief until
she has spent her late husbands
insurance on correspondence
course in writing. 1t Is quite an
aggregation and it makes for a lot
of fun in the unfoldment of the
story.
March and Miss Eldridge team
very handsomely in Hope for
Harvest" he in the lesser part as
the play spills through three acts.
Miss Treadwell has done less well
by her hero only in the third act,
where she calls upon him to make
an unduly long and repetitious
speech in summation of what the
heroine has been telling him up to
that point. 1t could be shortened
to the advantage of the play, al
though it might take an atrophied
American even longer than that to
talk himself out of so deep a lazi-
ness. and defeat.
Among the incidental performers,
Judy Parrish as the daughter, Alan
Reed as the gusty italian farmer,
Arthur Franz as the Italians son
and Edith King as the gaudy modern
farm wife, are outstanding.
Lester Wallis direction looks like
a nearly finished job, and Watson
Barratt's settings are eminently
satisfactory in suggesting the diff
ferent attitudes of the lazy and
energetic Westerners toward life.