mansfield theatre

PROGRAM CONTINUED

<table><tbody><tr><td>NOAH'S WIFE</td><td>SUSIE SUTTON</td></tr><tr><td>SHEM</td><td>MILTON J. WILLIAMS</td></tr><tr><td>FIRST WOMAN</td><td>DINKS THOMAS</td></tr><tr><td>SECOND WOMAN</td><td>ANNA MAE FRITZ</td></tr><tr><td>THIRD WOMAN</td><td>GENEVA BLYTHWOOD</td></tr><tr><td>FIRST MAN</td><td>EMORY RICHARDSON</td></tr><tr><td>FLATFOOT</td><td>FREDDIE ARCHIBALD</td></tr><tr><td>HAM</td><td>J. HOMER TUTT</td></tr><tr><td>JAPHETH</td><td>STANLEIGH MORRELL</td></tr><tr><td>FIRST CLEANER</td><td>JOSEPHINE BYRD</td></tr><tr><td>SECOND CLEANER</td><td>FLORENCE FIELDS</td></tr><tr><td>ABRAHAM</td><td>J. A. SHIPP</td></tr><tr><td>ISAAC</td><td>CHARLES H. MOORE</td></tr><tr><td>JACOB</td><td>EDGAR BURKS</td></tr><tr><td>MOSES</td><td>ALONZO FENDERSON</td></tr><tr><td>ZIPPORAH</td><td>MERCEDES GILBERT</td></tr><tr><td>AARON</td><td>McKINLEY REEVES</td></tr><tr><td>A CANDIDATE MAGICIAN</td><td>REGINALD FENDERSON</td></tr><tr><td>PHARAOH</td><td>GEORGE RANDOL</td></tr><tr><td>THE GENERAL</td><td>WALT McCLANE</td></tr><tr><td>FIRST WIZARD</td><td>EMORY RICHARDSON</td></tr><tr><td>HEAD MAGICIAN</td><td>ARTHUR PORTER</td></tr><tr><td>JOSHUA</td><td>STANLEIGH MORRELL</td></tr><tr><td>FIRST SCOUT</td><td>IVAN SHARP</td></tr><tr><td>MASTER OF CEREMONIES</td><td>BILLY CUMBY</td></tr><tr><td>KING OF BABYLON</td><td>JAY MONDAAYE</td></tr><tr><td>PROPHET</td><td>IVAN SHARP</td></tr><tr><td>HIGH PRIEST</td><td>J. HOMER TUTT</td></tr><tr><td>THE KING'S FAVORITES</td><td>LEONA WINKLER<br>FLORENCE LEE<br>CONSTANCE VAN DYKE<br>MARY ELLA HART<br>INEZ PERSAND</td></tr><tr><td>OFFICER</td><td>EMORY RICHARDSON</td></tr><tr><td>HEZDREL</td><td>DANIEL L. HAYNES</td></tr><tr><td>ANOTHER OFFICER</td><td>STANLEIGH MORRELL</td></tr></tbody></table>

PROGRAM CONTINUED ON SECOND PAGE FOLLOWING

[ 23 ]

the new york magazine program

To-night

HARRY RICHMAN
NORMA TERRIS

Medrano & Donna

Smith Ballew's Orchestra

The CLUB RICHMAN

157 WEST 56th STREET

Tel. Circle 3203 - 5444

LOUIS SCHWARTZ, Managing Director

THE BREAKERS is well-named, for its patrons are
as recurrent as the breakers themselves! . . . coming
and going and coming again !! . . . paying to
this great hostelry the tribute of continual encores!!
. . . for The Breakers is conducted on the selfish
principle of Repeat Business . . . our constant aim
is to convert newcomers into friends . . . so that
those who register their names at The Breakers this
year shall return to register their satisfaction
next year and for many, many years to come!

American or European Plan—Sea Water
in all Baths—Complete Garage Facilities

THE BREAKERS
ON THE OCEAN FRONT

JOEL HILLMAN
President

Atlantic City

JULIAN A. HILLMAN
Vice-President

[ 24 ]

mansfield theatre

SLIPPER HEEL* Hosiery points
the way to more slender, graceful
ankle lines. $1.35 and up

KAYSER

At better stores and at the Kayser
Shop—Fifth Avenue and 41st Street

® Trade Mark Reg. Licensee under
Pat. No. 1,111,658 ©1930, J. K. & Co.

PROGRAM CONTINUED

THE CHILDREN

Philistine Bumgardner, Margery Bumgardner, Fredia Longshaw, Wilbur Cohen, Jr., Verdon Perdue, Ruby Davis, Willmay Davis, Margerette Thrower, Viola Lewis.

ANGELS AND TOWNSPEOPLE

Amy Escamilla, Elsie Byrd, Benveneta Washington, Thula Oritz, Ruth Carl, Geneva Blythwood.

BABYLONIAN BAND

Carl Shorter, Earl Bowie, Thomas Russell, Richard Henderson.

THE CHOIR

EVELYN BURWELL, Assistant Director

SOPRANOS—Bertha Wright, Geraldine Gooding, Marie Warren, Mattie Harris, Elsie Thompson, Massie Patterson, Marguerite Avery.

ALTOS—Ruthena Matson, Leona Avery, Mrs. Willie Mays, Viola Mickens, Charlotte Junius.

TENORS—John Warner, Joe Loomis, Walter Hilliard, Harold Foster. Adolph Henderson, William McFarland, McKinley Reeves, Arthur Porter.

BARITONES—Marc D'Albert, Gerome Addison, Walter Whitfield, D. K. Williams.

BASSOS—Lester Holland, Cecil McNair, Tom Lee, Walter Meadows, Frank Horace.

[ 25 ]

the new york magazine program

HOW STARS
FIGHT FAT

NO STARVING

MOVIE stars must stay thin. That's a part of their contract. But they dare not starve to do it. for that might wreck their health. They consult the best physicians. And those physicians know that a common cause of excess fat is an under-active gland. In treating obesity or fighting obesity, they supply that lack as they find it.

The method they employ is embodied in Marmola prescription tablets. A famous medical laboratory prepares them to serve the purpose in an ideal way. The formula is in every box. All the good results are explained. Thus this modern method is brought to the masses at a modest cost.

Marmola has been used for 22 years—millions of boxes of it. Users have told the results to others, until Marmola has long held the top place in its field.

Excess fat blights youth and beauty, health and vigor. It is often caused by a lacking gland secretion, easily supplied. Why not learn—and at once—how much this scientific method can serve you. There are people in every circle who can tell you what it does. Go try Marmola, and watch the results for a little while. You will be delighted.

Marmola prescription tablets are sold by all druggists at $1 a box. Any druggist who is out will gladly order for you.

MARMOLA

PRESCRIPTION TABLETS

The Pleasant Way to Reduce

OFF STAGE

SIGHT-SEEING BUS

(A Strictly Local Ditty)

"We leave at once for Chinatown!"
The stalwart starter barked;
The stars came up, the sun went down,
And still the bus stayed parked.

As decades passed I soundly swore,
My smile became a frown,
But never moved that motor for
The sights of Chinatown.

I saw my youth go slipping by
And middle age draw near . . .
I lost the sight in my right eye,
The hearing in an ear.

At ninety now, I ask one boon
My wasted life to crown:
Oh, may this bus get started soon
En-route to Chinatown!

ARTHUR L. LIPPMANN

A really wealthy man is one who has
enough money to buy all the things
advertised as absolute necessities of
life.

* * *

BILL: Did you lose very much to that
firm of Wall Street swindlers?

PHIL: No, it was just a drop in the
duck shop.

* * *

A Pittsburgh wife is demanding her
freedom because her husband trumped
her tricks. Marriage these days is cer-
tainly getting to be a matter of finesse.

* * *

Lindbergh, vetoing a proposed St. Louis monument to his Paris flight, says he wants to be known as "the boy who flew the air mail." Uh-huh, the way George Washington is remembered as the man who surveyed in the Alleghanies.

[ 28 ]

mansfield theatre

PROGRAM CONTINUED

Costumes executed by Helene Theatrical Costume Company and Louis Guttenberg. Wigs and beards by Shindhelm. Lighting effects by Duwico. Scenery built by Turner Scenic Construction Company. Painted by Robert Bergman Studio.

Acknowledgement is made to Alma Lillie Hubbard of New Orleans for her assistance in the selecting of the spirituals.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

"The Green Pastures" is an attempt to present certain aspects of a living religion in the terms of its believers. The religion is that of thousands of Negroes in the deep South. With terrific spiritual hunger and the greatest humility these untutored black Christians—many of whom cannot even read the book which is the treasure house of their faith—have adapted the contents of the Bible to the consistencies of their everyday lives.

Unburdened by the differences of more educated theologians, they accept the Old Testament as a chronicle of wonders which happened to people like themselves in vague but actual places, and of rules of conduct, true acceptance of which will lead them to a tangible, three-dimensional Heaven. In this Heaven, if one has been born in a district where fish frys are popular, the angels do have magnificent fish frys through an eternity somewhat resembling a series of earthly holidays. The Lord Jehovah will be the promised comforter, a just but compassionate patriarch, the summation of all the virtues His follower has observed in the human beings about him. The Lord may look like the reverend Mr. Du Bois as our Sunday School teacher speculates in the play, or he may resemble another believer's own grandfather. In any event, His face will have an earthly familiarity to the one who has come for his reward.

The author is indebted to Mr. Roark Bradford, whose re-telling of several of the Old Testament stories in "Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun" first stimulated his interest in this point of view.

One need not blame a hazy memory of the Bible for the failure to recall the characters of Hezdrel, Zeba and others in the play. They are the author's apocrypha, but he believes persons much like them have figured in the meditations of some of the old Negro preachers, whose simple faith he has tried to translate into a play.

EXECUTIVE AND TECHNICAL STAFF FOR LAURENCE RIVERS, INC.

<table><tr><td>C. G. Stewart</td><td>General Manager</td></tr><tr><td>Joseph Robie</td><td>Press Representative</td></tr><tr><td>Marcella Hutchinson</td><td>Executive Secretary</td></tr><tr><td>J. A. Curtis</td><td>General Stage Manager</td></tr><tr><td>Claude Archer</td><td>Stage Manager</td></tr><tr><td>Edward Gardiner</td><td>Technical Director</td></tr><tr><td>Fred Matney</td><td>Master Mechanic</td></tr><tr><td>Daniel Murphy</td><td>Master of Properties</td></tr><tr><td>Walter Lommatzsch</td><td>Electrician</td></tr><tr><td>Alfred Lommatzsch</td><td>Assistant Electrician</td></tr><tr><td>R. M. Sweet</td><td>Assistant Electrician</td></tr></table>

STAFF FOR MANSFIELD THEATRE

<table><tr><td>Acting Manager</td><td>William Goldhardt</td></tr><tr><td>Treasurer</td><td>Stanley Harty</td></tr><tr><td>Master Mechanic</td><td>Harry Walzer</td></tr><tr><td>Master of Properties</td><td>Gilbert Keenan</td></tr><tr><td>Master Electrician</td><td>Samuel Saltzman</td></tr><tr><td>Geoffrey Davis</td><td>Chief of Staff</td></tr></table>

This theatre designed by Herbert J. Krapp, Architect.

[ 29 ]

the new york magazine program

Various Stages

THE arrival in our dynamic and highly energized Occident of the gracious Oriental, Mei Lan-Fang, the Chinese actor whose performances are so enormously successful at the 49th Street Theatre, is an event of more than passing interest to all true lovers of the drama. His title of honor, "Foremost of the Pear Orchard," harks back to the T'ang Dynasty, when the imperial troup gave their performances in a palace surrounded by pear trees. The title of Grand Abbot of the Ching-Chung Monastery was given him in 1923 by Ex-Emperor Hsuan T'ung when Mei Lan-Fang gave a performance in the Hang Hsin palace of the forbidden city.

Although Lew Leslie's "International Revue" was already pretty well supplied with celebrities, still another was added to the cast just before its entry into New York. This was Harry Richman, just returned from Hollywood and the talkies. Which makes a cast for the new revue that includes Gertrude Lawrence, Jack Pearl, Florence Moore, Argentinita, the Spanish dancer who is appearing for the first time in this country, Moss and Fontana, Anton Dolin and Harry Richman, as we have just remarked.

The management of the Jolson's Theatre Musical Comedy Company has announced a contemplated departure from its present policy, which has been the revival of the operettas of a decade or so ago-i.e., the production of something original and American. The new operetta has not so far been decided on, as the idea is to encourage young American composers, and these have been invited to send in their compositions, from which the management hopes to make a selection. No date has been set for the production, which may appear this season or not until next fall.

It is reported that Marcel Pagnol, the French author of "Topaze," is to visit this country, and that he is planning to bring with him the manuscript of a play called "Jazz."

[ 30 ]

“DRAMATIS PERSONAE”

GREEN PASTURES

Slowly but with unerring certainty the American public is being led toward the bitter but reviving waters of the life history of the American Negro. They have long refused to quaff this sour and shuddering draught. They have even denied its existence. They still shrink at the rush of its turbulent waters. They have clamored for broad farce, and then compromised with rollicking comedy. And then gradually, very gradually, they have approached the great and human stream.

One easily may trace the footsteps from "nigger" minstrels up to "Bандanna Land"; from "The Red Moon" to "Lulu Belle"; and then, the gradual climbing over "Deep River" to "Hallelujah"; and now to the broad and tenderly alluring "Green Pastures".

It is difficult for the Negro audience to judge a play for themselves. Most of us lack clear standards. What do we want in a play? A picture of ourselves as we would like to seem? A picture of ourselves as some of us are? Or a caricature of Negro life as today it is certainly not? Yet all these things can be portrayed upon the stage in an artistic way, and if the result is artistic, the play has a right to be given.

All art is propaganda, and without propaganda there is no true art. But, on the other hand, all propaganda is not art. Indeed, most of it is not. Most complaints, curses, arguments and facts are not at all artistically done and are not meant to be, no matter

how true they may be. But, on the other hand, if a person portrays ideal Negro life, the sole judgment of its success is whether the picture is a beautiful thing. He can not be criticized simply because white folk think the facts untrue or the ideal undesirable. Or, on the other hand, if he caricatures Negro life, and makes it sordid and despicable, the critic's criterion is not whether the work is complete or true to life, but solely, Is the idea well presented? Is the comedy genial and satisfying? The artist can not be criticized simply because it is caricature, although the public and the press may certainly be criticized for saying, as many said of Porgy—"this

is a picture of typical Negro life!" No, it was not, but it was a beautiful play. Or, if the picture of Negro life while true enough is incomplete, nevertheless, the measure of success is its artistry and not its completeness. The black world does rightly complain that white folk insist on judging art as truth and then refusing to accept or see or read any artistic work which does not portray the truth as they want it. This cripples the souls of white folk, but it does not make "Hallelujah" one whit less a fine movie.

The difficulty, of course, with the Negro on the American stage, is that the white audience, on the one hand, demands caricatures and farces, and the Negro, on the other hand, either cringes to the demand because he needs the pay, or bitterly condemns every Negro book or show what does not paint colored folk at their best. Their criticisms should be aimed at the incompleteness of art expression; at the embargo which white wealth lays on full Negro expression—and a full picturing of the Negro soul. On the other hand, the white audience rightly protests by refusal to listen to things that are not artistic, even though they may be complete and true.

All these difficulties are being slowly overcome. In "Green Pastures", Marc Connelly has made an extraordinarily appealing and beautiful play based on the folk religion of Negroes. Some whites will not like it because it is too human and tragic with all its humor. But more Negroes will view

*(Will you please turn to page 177)*

Richard Harrison

"Out of the land of Egypt; out of the House of Bondage"

May, 1930

THE CRISIS

Tutt Whitney, Charles score of others. No one may miss this play. It is the beginning of a new era, not simply in Negro art but in the art of America.

["“DRAMATIS PERSONAE”", "GREEN PASTURES", "Slowly but with unerring certainty the American public is being led toward the bitter but reviving waters of the life history of the American Negro. They have long refused to quaff this sour and shuddering draught. They have even denied its existence still shrink at the ruel waters. The", "waters. The American public is being led to believe that the bitter but reviving waters of the life history of the American Negro. They have long refused to quaff this sour and shuddering draught. They have even denied its existence still shrink at the ruel waters. That is the American public's belief. It has been so for many a year. The American public has always believed that the bitter but reviving waters of the life history of the American Negro. They have long refused to quaff this sour and shuddering draught. They have even denied its existence still shrink at the ruel waters. That is the American public's belief. It has been so for many a year. The American public has always believed that", "The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is about to start a campaign for a memorial to the Moorfield Storey and Louis Marshall. There are no two men of recent late Moorfield Storey and Louis Marshall. There are more deserving of grateful remembrance by the Negro. Eminently successful in their own race and careers, they went out of their way to befriend white people, on the job, to whom they owed nothing, for white and colored citizens to be friends with them. (Will you please turn to page 111.)", "Storey and Marshall\n\nby newspapers and hundreds of thousands, to keep the community, to keep with what is going on in the country, to keep the press, to keep the pulpit, to keep the Moravian community, to keep the Moravian church, to keep the Moravian editors for help. And, to keep the Mor

Yale University Library
The James Weldon Johnson
Memorial Collection of
Negro Arts & Letters
Founded by Carl Van Vechten
1941

Gift of
Mrs. James Weldon Johnson