Evening star., 1954-01-06


When Dear Charles" close.
night, instead of going on into N,
second play that has fallen out
from under him this season. The
other was Nathan Benchley's
"The Frogs of Spring..
Mr.. Sherman takes it all with
q cynical cheerfulness-to the
point of offering to buy luncheon
for one of the four critics who
voted against Dear Charles"
On minor pNint of honor, the
critic refused. On minor points
of honor. critics are correct
humans.
4 4 4 4
Mr.. Sherman. an actor in
rather constant demand, is
something of the perfect answer
to that question reviewers are
always being asked: How do ac-
tors take adverse notices for
their plays? His first words at
luncheon took care of this quite
nicely.
You're not going to get rid
Of me that easily" he said. I'm
due back here on the oath of
January. 1t will be at the Library
OF Congress, the reading of
LesSing's Nathan, the WISE"
Mr.. Sherman, riffling through
his memory, thinks flops have
provided him with some of his
most amusing adventures.
When I was young and inno-
cent" he recalls, "I was asso-
ciated with highly artistic little
theater group in Chicago. We
were Intellectually ultra and full
OF daring. There was a time, for
9 instance, when we did a German
play that I didn't understand, an
ignorance put down then to be-
ing underdeveloped in taste.
IN never forget the play. It
was about a man looking for
his soul. In the first act, he
looked for it in a saloon. He
didn't find it there. So, in the
second act. he looked for it in a
brothel. It wasn't there either
but that is where the play ended.
Six months later, the third act
arrived. sustaining my first i'm
preston that the original pro-
duction was as vague as the
critics said"
Mr.. Sherman came into the
New York theater during the de-
pressed year of 1892. Acting Jobs
were more erratic then than they
are now. But it was this very
cratic quality that taught the
actor a lesson he never forgot.
There were people who, at
the time. thought of me as in
telligent and quite a clever young
man." he remembers. when
they would get to evaluating me
thus. they would suggest I be a
writer instead of an actor. Since
I could not be an actor through
no fault of my own, and since I
could borrow a typewriter, +
decided to give the idea a try.
Il went to my room and tapped
out a play. No one wanted it. So,
I tapped out another. Still no
luck. tried a third and this
one got produced, by a group of
actors as desperate as I was. It
not only got produced, it also
got a set of the bitterest notices
I ever read.
That's when made the great
decision that it is socially prefer
able not to be writer. If, an
actor. you get bad notice, you
are not ostracized. After a
couple of days of loneliness,
people begin to ask you if you
won't have a drink and you Begin
to work your way back into the
social system. AS a writer, I
found, they avoid you as a
plague. I've been acting ever
since"
Yet even this morbidly learned
lesson cannot keep Mr.. Sherman
from flirting with a writable
theme. From flop to flop, and
also from success to success, he
has observed some flaws in the
theater which kept tempting him
to write about them. He might
some day. between the last flop
and the next hit.
One Of the subjects that inevi-
tably comes up in talking with
actors these days is television.
Mr.. Sherman has been too busy
the last few years to be available,
so television producers have not
bothered with him. Despite this
seasons average, he has recently
had such hits as "Brigadoon,"
"The Moon Is Blue" and. al
though less than a hit, a season
in Bette Davis revue last year.
80" he says, my relation to
television is that of a pioneer. I
was acting all over the thing
when nobody had television sets
back in the early 40s. Expert
mental stuff. you know. I don't
know if anyone ever saw it. Then
went to the war-he was here
at AnacoStia-and after that to
England to act. When I got back.
television was big, busy and oc-
cupied by other actors"
Television. however, is Sher-
man-conscious. He hears from
it every once in a while. AS, for
-