Evening star., 1952-09-28
TurntobIe Talk:

nj" Mozart consigns his Don
tremendously to hell. Bernard
Shaw was quite a Don Giovan-
nj fan, but he didn't concur
in the unfortunate hero's fate.
In the central scene of his
drama Man and Superman,"
the reSourceful IriShman fol-
lows the Don downward for the
generous purpose of sending
him, eventually, off to heaven.
Throngs of late have been
making the acquaintance of the
Shavian hell through the
agency of an august ensemble
known as the First Drama
Ouartette. Charles Boyer. Sir
Cedric HardWicke. Charles
Laughton and Agnes Moore
head are the four. They have
been putting on Shaw's hither-
to neglected piece in a kind of
croSS-country marathon, of
which Washington has had only
the briefest sample (but they're
coming AGAIN..
Don Juan in He'll" is a
natural for records, for it is
entirely conversational and calls
for no costumes or scenery.
Columbia-not a company to
be caught mapping - corralled
the quartette long enough to
commit the work to tapes last
spring and two LIPS have re-
suited.
First Recorded Dromo
The event merits applause in
nearly every respect. In the
first place, this is the first
Shavian drama to be recorded
and among the first of any
body's. LIPS boast only a hand
full of samples even of Shake
Speare Don Juan" is a step
in what should become a steady
progression of recorded stage
masterpieces made readily and
permanently available through
discs. What a benefit such
progression would be to both
passive auditors and active
imitators can be imagined.
Secondly, there is the play
itself. What more enticing
subjects are there, to start with,
than the two Shaw has COM
bined-Don Juan, and hell?
We can name Immediately two
composers who were enticed by
the first-Mozart, of course.
and Strauss. The romantic and
the devilish are endlessly fascl-
mating. But these are just the
beginning. Shaw stirs them up
in kind of philosophical stew
in which all sorts of ideas are
boiled up. blended and trans
muted. Is life good? Does it
have a purpose? Can human
beings find happiness? What
is happiness? Are people what
they seem-or is life all a
sham? Where is mans destiny
hell or heaven? Or earth?
No commonplace characters,
naturally, debate these mo-
mentous questions. First is
Shaw's Devil. most engaging
sort with passion-not for
horror-but for love. beauty and
mice things" A pleasanter fell
low you never met. Then there
Is the Don. who is bored-eX-
pectable, perhaps, after = his
eventful life, yet it is for diff
ferent reason than you might
imagine. Next comes the Com
mander, the father of Mozart's
Donna Anna. He begins his
supernatural career as he ended
his earthly one-aS statue;
and in '-~r he '>"~'neeoS to be
quite content. Finally we have
Donna AnlId hel nt4A, icprCSenta-
tive of Womanhood. At II. she
remains a girl at heart. full OF
thoughts of virtue and womanly
duty.
Wit Liehtens Dialogue
There's lot of talk-a good
hour and a half of it. Some of
it comes thick and fast, too.
But if Shaw isn't always to be
assimilated at one hearing. what
better answer than two? With
records, there is no limit. And
the Shavian wit keeps the going
from getting heavy.
Mr.. Laughton is a perfect
devil. Sir Cedric makes an
exceptionally urbane and elo-
quenC land British) statue-the
most eloquent, in fact, I've ever
encountered. Miss Moorehead
demonstrates an amazing capa-
city for varied vocal expression.
Mr.. Boyer is convincing-the
only difficulty being his French
English (and this is consider
able one>. The recording, being
merely a matter of registering
what was said into microphones.
Is what one would expect.
One sentence more will do it:
Let's have more like 1t.
X x *
Anybody susceptible to three
four time land who isn't0 should
find it hard to resist Columbia's
latest effort in operetta. It's
"The Merry Widow" Now al
most so years old, the Lehar
opus certainly is about as far
from novelty as a record maker
can go, yet this new studio pro-
duction sounds fresh. Dorothy
Kristen, Genevieve Warner.
Robert Rounsevile and Clifford
Harvuot are the notables in the
cast and Lehman Engel directs
the proceedings in spirited FASH
ion. The sound is SumptuouS.
One reservation, however, on
behalf of any who might be
interested in following the
imaginary stage business: Even
with the almost uniformly un-
Io,etoVJo hIo E11O1ich Ckafohu