Evening star., 1954-12-14

VnMG a 1C1 SC A4uO1SdA 4AAL VOAAS
derful Town" and make a town
wonderful. This town. Of course.
has been well. prepared for the
change.
In the instance Of the Robert
Fryer production to be sure.
Miss Charming has some shin
ing assistance. This begins with
Ruth McKenny's MY Sister
Eileen" stories, which four other
writer's. Joseph Fields, Jerome
Chodorov, Betty Comden and
Adolph Green. have reworked
and for which Leonard Bernstein
has composed the musical score.
It is a high spirited collabora :
ton which leads everyone back
to the sos which, In comparison
with the 40s and sos, have begun
to look idyllic. The pleasure of
reliving the period with Miss
Charming should keep the Ma
tional seething for the last three
weeks of one Of Washington's
more scabrous years.
4 4 II
Wonderful Town." which she
inherited from Rosalind Russell,
has the look Of a custom-made
musical for Miss Charming. She
Is a girl who is as stout hearted
as she is wide-eyed and any sit
uation which demands that she
cope is a laughable sight to be-
hold. She is given little rest
from coping In this adventure Of
two Columbus (Ohio) girls In
New York's Greenwich Village
when the area was just getting
Its second wind.
The best thing about the Ma
tional's first musical of the sea-
son Is the nice match 1t produces
between the comedy styes Of
Miss Charming and Miss Nc
Kenney; Ruth, Of course, not
Eileen. The two are not con-
temporaries by a couple Of dec
ades, but they have the same
wary way of anticipating and
dealing with the unpredictable.
New York, for an intelligent
girl beset by an irresistible,
feather-b Drained blond sister
named Eileen, fairly reeks with
the unpredictable.
n \ Il II
In view of its popularity in It's
three earlier forms, the original
New Yorker stories, the play and
the picture-its musical adapters
might well have been tempted to
60 light on the book. Happily.
they were too crafty for that.
They have kept all Of the spirit
and much of the letter Of Miss
McKenney's hilarious memoir of
village life. The added songs ard
dances represent just enough of
the vivacious touch to start it all
over again.
This deep in it's second season,
"Wonderful Town" Is as cheerful
and high spirited as George Alb
bott demanded 1t should be back
In rehearsal days.
AS acted and danced, If not
In every instance sung. it can
lull the most cynical skeptic
into believing there is more of
humanity submerged in New
York's asphalt jungle than he
has ever admitted. Or. at least.
that this was true back in the
30s. True. New Workers were
imperfect then, but only in the
usual. neighborly ways that
could not really frustrate the
dreams Of a plain, intelligent
girl like Miss Charming nor
deadly fiibberty-gibbet such as
Betty Gillett, who plays her
SA5VSAs
Il n r. II
One of the more cheerful
impressions of Wonderful
Town" Is that the Village was a
dancing place in the McKenny
girls time. The musical abounds
in bouncing choreography by
Donald Saddler which suggests
lower Manhattan was ready to
dance at the drop of an artists
brush or the first wild, wailing
note of a clarinet from a cellar
night club.
The best of these will seem to
be that imperishable Conga,
much elaborated here naturally,
but actually. 1t must be the
number in the second act titled
abruptly. "Swing!"
The musical score by MIR.
Bernstein Is quite a departure
from the routine Of such things.
Its most spirited intervals are
those in which 1t is in Miss Chan
ning's charge. when she Is sing
ing about 100 ways to lose man,
or joining a few fellow Bohe-
mians in Conversation Piece"
discussing the Conga with those
Brazilian cadets. or joining Miss
Gillett in a sisterly lament for
Ohio.
Since she is not congenitally
the ballad type, Miss Claiming
deters on these to Miss Gillett
and George Gaynes, both OF
whom are vocally impressive.
Others who give clever imita-
tions of exhuberant villages in
clude Paul Lipson. Ted Beniades,
Jordan Bentley. Isabelle Hopes
and Don Barton.
Raoul Pene du Bois created
the sets and costumes for Won
derful Town" and 1t Is an abso-
Lutte certainty that Greenwich
Village never looked livelier.
Realism Is Easy