Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-02-08

1NCNCI WAOAA 4OO 4OoO "a
Speech and Drama Department
has revived Harvey" in its 1853
81 series of plays about heroes. It
is not, rather definitely not. one
of the groups major production
achievements. Nevertheless it
quite goes to show that Harvey"
represents a major contribution
by Mary Coyle Chase to the
American drama.
Lacking the brilliance it en-
joyed in the days of Miss Hull
and Fay as its stars. Harvey" is
still an extraordinarily funny
play. And much more than that.
In Elwood P. Dowd, the wistful
drunk who weaves through the
days in the happy company Of an
imaginary 6-foot white rabbit.
Mrs. Chase profiles the enviably
good man.
Moreover, in the embarrassed
relations of his conventional sis
ter. and the bewildered psychia-
triSts with poor Elwood, Mrs.
Chase has caught two equiva-
lently sharp and funny facets of
Americas folkways.
Seeing him once more. one is
convinced that Elwood P. Dowd
will far outlive those who proph-
esy the direst of ends for alco-
holicS. AS Mrs. Chase injected
him into dramatic literature. he
seems approximately immortal.
In especially the key role of
Elwood, the university theater
production and Director William
Graham are fortunate to have
found Actor Henry Sutton. SUIT
ton could not possibly have had
the time at his age to have ex-
perienced Elwood'S happy dis
covery of the alcoholic daze, but
he stimulates it very well indeed.
He catches at least enough of
Mrs. Chase's hero's contagious
amiability and his fair for the
wildly disconcerting question to
suggest that Elwood has found
the recipe for true happiness.
He makes the hero of Harvey"
a man who has a much better
reason for drinking than any,
thing remotely connected with
the taste of alcoholic beverages.
It is a display that is at its
funniest when it shakes the
flrmest social convictions of his
critical sister and the even
firmer scientific ones of the psy-
chiatrists who seek to cure him.
The humans who radiate out
ward from this central figure of
Mrs. Chase's comedy are more
conventional but somehow less
within the grasp of the univer-
sity company. This is not to
say they are not funny, Mrs.
Chase took care of that, but
that they have been much more
so.
Next to Sutton, the author
gets her ablest assist here from
Jeanne Davis as Veta Louise
Simmons. This madly mortified
sister of Elwood, simmering
endlessly in his sauce. is ire
mendous caricature, a point on
which Miss Davis keeps sum-
Gent control that it is never
lost. even if never completely
found.
Others in the company di-
rected by Graham who measure
closest to the comedy's de-
mands include Rita Trojan as
the gusty Mrs. Chauvenet: Bev-
erley Skrinak AS the buxom,
Mortified niece of the hero, and
Richard Armstrong as the SEN
ior psychiatrist.
James Waring has created a
pair of effective sets in the
cluttered Dowd family living
room and the reception room of
Shumley's Rest. the psychiatric
center which Elwood turns into
q madhouse.
y y X
MONDAY MEMOS: Opening
tonight at the National, the
Royal Winnipeg Ballet in q
series of eight performances. E.
Tonight's presentation, the first
in this country, will draw the
New York as well as local