Evening star., 1950-07-29

unmlJlgaCeQ woe, Cne CdIIOllc O1l
This Russian playwright named I
was no man of melancholy. at leas
comes out under the ministrations
and drama department.
The play. adapted into English
(not American) by Rodney Ack-
land, had it's first American per-
formance at the University Thea
ter last night and is scheduled to
run through August 6. AS played
by a competent cast under the
IMAGINATIVE direction Of Basil
Langton, it makes a thoroughly
enjoyable evenings fun. 1t may
not give you better impression
of the Russians than you now
have, but it is guaranteed to give
you a funnier one.
Come to think of it, "The Diary
of a ScoundreP' may not have
been comedy Except in the Chek-
hovian sense) when Ostrovsky
wrote it back in the latter half
of the last century. The empha-
sis is on the comic, however, as
Ackland arranged the play and
as it is performed with elan at
c. U.~The characters are turned
into caricatures by ludicrous
makeup and the playing is so
broad with burlesque as to make
ordinary farce seem Subdued by
comparison.
THE Diary of a Scoundrel'
takes on certain overtoneS IN
washington, of course, that 1t
would not have anywhere else
anywhere, that is, outside of some
other national capital. The hero
of this lampoon is young man
named Gloumov, who decides IN
the first scene that he needs a
good job involving little if any
work and a handsome salary,
which indicates a Civil Service
post. You can imagine that this
and other references to Civil Serv-
ice and officials not overburdened
with wit and wisdom are good for
solid laughs in the C. Z. play
house.
In fact the entire farce creates
the impression that any smart
operator in Government circles
today would find himself right at
home if set down in the old pre-
revolution Moscow. Gloumov, the
scoundrel, has quite a knack for
satire, the author says, but lie
puts that aside except for the
secret notes in his diary while he
uses f1attery on influential people.
Don't say that can't happen here.
There really is not much more
you need to know about the plot.
The scoundrels duplicity is dis
covered, of course, which is not
entirely unforeseen, since second
acts have to end, and eventually
things work out with no hard
feelings when the scoundrel DEM
onstrates to all the people he has
been using that they need him.
too. 1t is this turn of events
which suggests that OstrovSky
might have been writing one of
those brooding Russian phycho-
logical dramas which Mr.. Ackland
found wildly amusing.
If that's what happened Mr..
Ackland was right, all right. The
foolishness is maintained at a
fairly steady pace and Director
Langton has inspired some top
notch playing as the cast creates
its gallery of grotesques, Most of
these, as costumed by Joseph
Lewis and made up with wild
abandon, are straight out of Ho-
garth and are funny just standing
there, before they move or talk.
The general mood of the piece
is enhanced by Jim Warnings sets,
which are best described by pro-
gram note. They are, says the
program, styled in a modified
version of the conStructivist form
where the settings seek to mirror
the theme of the play"
One of the funnier aspects of
'The Diary of a Scoundrel"
arises from the Ackland transla-
ton. All of these people act like
bourgeois Muscovites, at least
roricotlIrpS of hO1IrpeoiS M1Sco-
vites, but they talk like good, solid