Evening star., 1946-11-20

about. BY that time, of course,
none of us will care but there is
/ something highly dramatic in think
ing posterity will find us that laugh
able.
1t is possible that this is value
I that Harold Arlen and E. Y. Har-
burg never thought of when they
jotted down the music and words
of "Bloomer Girl" Actually, it does
not seem to have been there when
this reviewer saw the musical open
in New York two years ago. If
it was not, it is a neat Illustration
. of how time can be trickily favor
/. able to musical and bids fair to
make "Bloomer Girls" return TO
Broadway in January a second
triumph.
j There is no question that Pro-
ducer John C. Wilson has treated
. 1t handsomely in the lively males
and lovely females he has assembled
for this OCCASION Good as it was,
the original cast got no more of its
hearts, its voices, and its winning
personalities into the production
than do Nannette Fabray, Dick
Smart, Peggy Campbell, Humbert
Dilworth and their colleagues.
1t is heart-warming job they do
of keeping frayed edges from such
weI-thumbed tunes as "Evahna,"
welcome Hinges" "The Eagle and
Me-" Il Got a Song" and the others.
1t is not as if you never had heard
them, but more as if they had mel
loved into new dimension in the
heart as they became more familiar
in the ear.
A nicer thing could not happen to
q nicer musical.
In giving Americans a laughing
look at their past to console them
for the fuzzy look of the future,
Harlem and Harburg chose we'll in
Dolly Bloomer and her time. Dolly's
unladylike concerns which played
such havoc with the tranquility of
Cicero Falls, N. Y, reached well
beyond the intention to hberate her
sex from skirts.
She worked up a proper and
potent dudgeon against slavery,
child labor, women's votelessness,
tycoons such as her brother Horatio
Applegate, and numerous other as
poets of social injustice. She gave
the authors of "Bloomer Girl" a
whale of lot to sing about and
to whip into jests, some of them with
whipping edges. Yet in the main
Dolly's case history is told with a
tolerant humor that keeps it within
the pleasant formal of folklore set
to music.
1t is probably rank heresy in one
of Celeste Holm'S most unblushing
admirers to find Miss Fabray such
delight to the eye, ear and heart
in the role of Evalina Applegate.
The latter, who succeeded Miss Holm
on Broadway some time ago, really
seems to be just the girl for the
part. Her Evalina also is a saucy
lass, full of high spirits, drollery
and subtlety. A little more subtlety
perhaps than any other girl who
ever unprecedented Evalina. And
maybe also a voice a mite more
adaptable to the variety of melodies
that come within the roles romantic
range.
Producer Wilson leaves nothing tc
quibble about in the rest of the
population he has gathered for
Cicero Falls in 1861. H.
Next to Miss Fabray's, the doni-
nant performance is that of Hubert
ellsworth in the role of the escaped
slave, Pompey. Ellsworth makes
Pompey completely winning char
acter of more than vocal warmth
in the musicals most moving solos,
"The Eagle and Me" and IT Got
a Song" He gives it a dramatic
force that is not normally to be
found in light-hearted compositions
such as "Bloomer Girl"
4 y X y
Another completely personable
selection is Peggy Campbell in the
role of the frustrated wildfower,
Daisy, the part originally filled by
the impish Joan MacCracken. The
minute Miss Campbell may be more
fascile as comedienne than as
dancer, but she is less than perfect
In the funny lament song of the
production, "Tomorra.
Other standout individuals who
contribute to the gayety of "Bloomer
Girl include Dick Smart as the gay
blade Calhoun brother; Matt Briggs
as Tycoon Applegate; Mabel Talli-