Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1959-09-27
BY JAY CARMODY
Drama Critic Of The star

snug distance OF ~ or 20 1eet,
they are completely vulner-
able to the spell Of a new
conner Of the power Of a Julie
Harris, Geraldine Page, Maui
reen Stapleton or Kim STAN
ley.
RhapsOdies Justified
Washington audiences, If
not critics, caught their first
glimpse of Miss Stanley
outside Of the movies and TV
last week in "Cheri" at the
National. She proved to be
everything. no. more, that
the critics with their sup
posedly blurred vision have
been saying since BUS Stop"
And, from that play through
a couple Of lesser jewels
bearing the labels. "Trip to
Bountiful" and "A Clearing
in the Woods"
Miss Stanley, who added to
her stature last year in the
daughter role in "A Touch of
the Poet" by Eugene O'Neill,
is a stunning figure in Anita
Loos' adaptation Of Colette's
"Cheri" novels. She is this
not merely as the romantic
adventures, to put it
politely. in the play but in
the inspiration which i'm
PEELED her to take the part.
She could not be more a
perfect choice for Colette's
elegant Paris courtesan, nor a
more unlikely girl to choose
the role for herself. Only a
rare and admirable discretion
could impel an actress her
age to play Lea de Lonvan,
who first appears as an ex-
quisitely preserved feminine
43 and disappears two acts
later as a gray. masculinized
60-year-old, 290-pound gro
tesQue.
Beauty to Monster
The inner experience so
monstrously externalized is
one that no actress could con-
template with equanimity.
Miss Stanley makes it quite
her dish Of tea, to the down.
right awe Of the audience as
the final curtain falls on
"Cheri." As a display of vir-
tuosity 1t may be no prettier
than Miss Pages as the wan
ton in Sweet Bird of Youth"
but it could not be brought
off more dazzlingly. Es-
pecially in a first perform
ance as was last Monday
nights at the National.
Miss LooS, to be sure, is
not without a share of the
credit for Miss Stanley's tour
de force.
She has undertaken in
"Cheri" a much more difficult
task than that she did so sue
cessfully in adapting Colette's
"Gigi." The latter was a
smart comic treatment of the
case history Of a girl reared
for elegant courtesanship who
chooses marriage over ele-
CANT professionalism in love.
Merry and Macabre
"Cheri." a blend of the
merry and macabre. is con-
cerned with an affair which
starts light-heartedly between
a 43-year-old Paris butter
fly and a sophisticated boy Of
10 and ends fatally for both.
What begins as an uninno-
cent game on the part of both
turns into a life of heart
break. Its end for one is
degradation, the. other death.
While this is palpably not
the stuff of comedy, Miss
Loos injects a surprising
amount of amusement into
"Cheri's" recall of Colette'S
pre-war % Paris playtime
and the postwar period of
remorse and recrimination.
The dominant character in
this vivid period portrait is
not the title one but Miss
Stanley's Lea.
The boy, played by Ger
many's youthful Horst Buch-
holz. is her foil. 1t is through
him that she learns that all
she knows of the techniqueS.
or ways. of love have left her
hopelessly vulnerable to the
cruelty Of loving without
hope.
Makeup Minimal
The dazzle of Miss STAN
ley's portrait of Lea is that
it is brought off with so little
help of Transforming make
up save, of course, in the
grisly, dramatic denounce-
ment scene. From irresistible
beauty through the success
sive stages of dissolution
until the last one - she
achieves the changes in Lea
through no more than a
slackening of facial muscles,
a droop of eyelids or mouth,
a sag of her shoulders or a
slump of spine.
This maximum of change
achieved with a minimum of
external aids is, like Miss
Pages, one of the achieve
ments of modernly styled act
ing that makes Actors Studio
critics feel insecure in their