“TOO MUCH PARTY,” by Hiram Sherman, staged by William B. Friedlander, presented by the Metropolitan Players at the Masque Theater with the following cast: This review is written merely to keep the record intact. I am inclined to think that before a week passes the memory of this show will have passed from the minds of those who were inveigled into the Masque for the opening. Only the author, producer and the actors will remember that there was a show called “Too Much Party,” and perhaps it is just as well.
There is little point in setting down a transcript of what transpired upon the stage of the Masque. It is sufficient to say that Mr. Sherman wrote a play about a social minded lady, the mother of two grown children.
The old girl has devoted herself to saving young boys and girls from juvenile delinquency and worse. She burns with zeal and hopes to become a big sister to the little community in which she lives. The author makes it obvious that this mother does not know what it is all about. He pictures her as a woman with no knowledge of the ramifications of social service work and introduces a scene wherein she contributes to a fund to make morons less moronic. Of course the idea behind all this business is that her interest in uplift is blind. While she is away from home saving other people’s children from lawlessness, her own kids carry on shamelessly. Her own daughter has an affair with a young college boy and her son takes to forging checks with abandon in the neighborhood speakeasy.
The reason this play fails to impress is because the theme is a hackneyed one, the dramatization is feeble, the dialogue is flat and the whole production has about it an unshakeable air of amateurishness. It is impossible to judge the real competence of the cast. The lines the players have to speak and the situations they find themselves in, require a talent found only among the truly great.
As you may have guessed by now, “Too Much Party” is a dismal thing. It is not even fit to be used as a skit for a radio program.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
