Evening star., 1948-06-30

Mary Macarthur, who, in the role
of the brat sister, makes threats
of stealing the play. Miss Mac
Arthur, who heretofore has had
overwhelming competition, starting
with her famous mother, is on her
spirited own this week. Playwright
Barry can be proud of her collabo-
ration with him in THE Philadel-
phia Story
X
The Olney's latest offering rep
resents Author Barry up to one OF
his oldest and most highly polished
tricks, namely, lecturing wittily on
the neurosis of the social aristoc-
racy. His mood is compound OF
sympathy and disdain, sort OF
frank discussion of the subject by
a man who could argue that the
whole thing hurts him more than
his victims. This Is true, also, of
the plays subordinate observations
on tycoon journalism as practiced
by chain publishers who can af-
ford slick paper and a dramatic
extreme of arrogance.
The central figure in Barry's IL
lustrated lecture is the Tracy Lord
played this time by Miss Barry
more.
She is a spirited girl, this Tracy,
but her intellectual and physical
energies lead only to making life
more of a moral mess. When the
play opens, she has discarded one
husband, member of her own ex-
elusive tribe, and is about to marry
another whose origins are about as
antlthetical as they could get. The
new man is self-made, up from the
coal pits to the top of the anthra-
cite heap.
Tracy patiently is the experimental
type and she is not able to stop with
this pair. The. third turns up In
the guise Of a sophisticated bitter
staff writer on a magazine called
Destiny. richly rewarded slave OF
publisher who dresses scandal
journalism in a new vocabulary and
fools the, say daylights, out OF
everybody.
This chap also has lot to stir
the fancy of Historically searching
Tracy. He completes a team which
gives the girl quite battle before
she makes the choice that leaves
every one living happily ever after
This quartet Of central figures Is
surrounded by an assortment OF
aristocratic relatives and bourgeois
intruders who were much better un-
derstood and appreciated by Mr..
Barry than by Miss Barrymore and
her company. They read his lines
with vigor and wrestle energetically
with his piquant situations, but they
never seem to be telling more than
a small part OF the Philadelphia
story.
Miss Barrymore is not made. as
was Miss Hepburn, with that lean
patrician look the playwright seems
to have noted in Main Line women
Of this generation. Nor does she
suggest that her Tracy is girl
with softness deep inside which
explains her moral confusion. Miss
Barrymore seems rather a heroine
capable of blasting her way out OF
any situation, not excluding those
of The Philadelphia Story
In Robert Wilcox. also, the Olney
comes up with less Of man than
those who played Mike Connor, the
embittered writer, in previous ver-
sions OF the play. There was more
Of human sympathy and under
standing in the Mike previously dis
played as Barry's hero.
Dean Havens sketches a reason
able facsimile Of the first husband,
however, and the same may be said
for Grant Gordon as the former
miner who might have brought new
blood to the Lord line.
Granting her the pet role Of the
play as the brat sister, little Miss
Macarthur is the one you are GER
tain to find most pleasing at the
Olney this week. Certainly she is
closest of the whole group to the
spirit of what is remembered of the
original production OF THE Phila-
delphia Story
S. Syrjala has come up with a
series OF wealthy family living rooms
and verandas which shows that
the summer theater can be creative
even If 1t is not rich.