Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-09-16

btbS Wv, bOCCC 1uFtN, ufIO
member OF Catholic Uniuersity'S
drama faculty explains the
choice OF the play Which will
open the theater season at the
school)
By Walter Kerr.
We first became piqued with the
whole idea one evening last fall
It was early fall, and early fall in
New York can be pretty nice, I'M
less it is complicated daily by
seven hours of rehearsal followed
by six hours of discussing what was
wrong with the rehearsal. Things
were just so complicated at the
time, what with Sing Out, Sweet
Land" getting under way; but,
miraculously, free evening dumped
itself into our laps Which is how
is happened that six of us, Alfred
Drake, Edward Eager, myself, and
our respective wives, were sitting
comfortably around Alfred's apart
ment and just talking.
Now it is possible to keep a group
Of theater people from talking about
the show on which they are cur
rently working. I don't say it is
easy, or at all likely; but it is pos
sible. 1t is not possible to keep
them from talking about some show
Shop is at once the curse and de-
light of the profession And SO
naturally, Edward was talking about
his misadventures with Dream
With Music for which he had done
the lyrics; I was talking about my
niSadventures with "Stardust," for
which I had done two-year
stretch, and Alfred was talking
about his in-and-out career before
his tremendous success in okla
homa!" Seems Alfred had once
been called in to read a part for
a certain producer four times; the
first three times he was rejected
on the fourth, the producer took
one look at him, leaped to his feet
gurgled with joy, and exclaimed
What perfect type for the part
Where have you been all this timer
Drake Also Writes.
Seems that Alfred now and then
turns his hand to writing, too
Seems also that Alfred and Edward
had done a few new scripts to-
gether. Seems, finally, that one OF
these had been a musical version
of Goldonis The Liar" At this
point l leaped to my feet and CUR
gled with joy. 1.-THE Liar" was
commedia dell-arte, and here was
new treatment of it, with an orig.
inal musical score.
Now to any one who cares very
much about the theater before Ibser
the eommedia del 'arte is virtually
a first love. 1t was that wonderfully
spontaneous comic theater which
f1ourished in Italy and France from
the early 10th to the early 18th cen.
turtles. So spontaneous was it tina
the lines were not written down a
all, merely improvised by the actor
from a plot outline plastered on thu
backstage wall until Goldoni CAV,
them literary immortality in tn
18th century. It was the theate
which gave us the characters o
Harlequin (Arlecchino), Puncl
CPulcinella), Pantalone (of tn
"pantaloon" trousers Scaramouche
Columbina, and that braggart, Capt.
tano, who is afraid of his owl
shadow. Our Punch and JUDD
shows of today, when we can still
find them, are direct and rathe
exact link. The characters neve
changed from play to play, the,
were highly styled, and they al
possessed hundreds of "lazzi" o
trick gags. The Marx brothers ar
our nearest living approximation o
the form. They may not know il
but they are.
We had always wanted to do /
commedia for our audiences a
Catholic University, to round on
the cycle Of periods and styles view