Critical Moments

An active but a not too exciting week best describes the Broadway legitimate situation. From Monday through Wednesday four productions were presented and it must be sadly reported that there was not a smash hit, the kind that warms the heart of a box-office treasurer, among them.

On Monday evening at the Plymouth, the new Jewish producing firm of Selwyn and Franklin presented their initial offering, an English comedy by H. M. Harwood, titled “Lady Jane.” It will do mildly well, that is, as long as Frances Starr remains in the cast. This fine actress was able to breath life into what might have been, in the hands of another player, a dull piece.

“Lady Jane” was originally played in London, where it was called “Old Folks at Home.” It deals with the home life of a doddering scientist who specializes in the habits of insects and his beautiful and worldly – wise wife (Frances Starr). The wife has a lover and also a daughter who is both indiscreet and promiscuous. In addition, there is a daughter-in-law who is equally careless of her morals. With these ingredients the author, through Miss Starr, brings out his sophisticated point of view that a little infidelity not only adds spice to married life but also tends to send a woman back to her husband.

“Too Many Boats,” which had its premier at the Playhouse, is the work of Owen Davis, once one of our more distinguished playwrights. This present piece will not add to his fame. It is based on a novel by Charles L. Clifford and emerges as a melodrama of life in the Philippines at an army post in 1918. This post is a kind of shelf upon which are placed officers who are not fit for service in France. With them are their wives and sweethearts. Naturally, with little to do the entire assemblage manage to get themselves into all sorts of troubles. There are love affairs, jealousies, and all the other troubles common to bored people. This situation would be sufficient for a drama, but to make things even more complicated the enlisted men who go in for native religion and pistol dueling and the natives themselves, who have a penchant for white women, add to the confusion. The very cast rambles through the scenes largely with some carelessness and although there are exciting moments most of the business is unconvincing and exceedingly melodramatic.

‘TIGHT BRITCHES’ AT AVON

“Tight Britches,” the combined efforts of John Taintor Foote and Hubert Hayes, was offered at the Avon Theatre as an example of American folk lore. It was first presented down in North Carolina and the natives are reported as having approved of it. For Broadway, its success is dubious. “Tight Britches” is hill-billy drama about a young mountaineer who hears the call and decides to become a preacher, but before he is ordained he is seduced rather easily by a hill-billy gal who embarrassingly bears him a child. This deviation breaks him all up and he is finally shot by the no-good brother of the ruined lass. As counter drama there is the rich farmer’s daughter who has set her cap for the mountaineer and for the comedy the inevitable hill-billy characters. The script itself although suffering from verbosity and pompuousness, has its brighter spots but the Broadway cast is unable to forget that they are doing anything but a costume play.

Elmer Rice’s “Judgment Day” which came with great promise to the Belasco, boasting of a large and distinguished cast is a distinct disappointment. His theme is that dictatorship as it is being promulgated in Europe today is unsatisfactory, ruthless and anti-humanitarian. His plot concerns the attempted assassination of a European dictator and what transpires at the trial of his foiled and unsuccessful assassins. All the action takes place at the trial and this gives Mr. Rice a chance to have his say about social and political questions which he does in a loud and often not understandable voice. I have not seen a play which was quite as confusing as Mr. Rice’s present work. A continuous din is kept going throughout the scenes and at times things become so loud and raucous, as the characters all try to speak at once, that the audience could be seen digging around for headache tablets. Mr. Rice’s idea is a good one but his attempt to dramatize all the ills of the world in three acts is a bit too much for Broadway.

NEWS NOTES AND COMMENTS

The sudden withdrawal of the foreign-made picture “The Wandering Jew” can be credited to the group of prominent Jews who were asked to pass on a pre-view of the film. Some of the scenes were so blatantly anti – Semitic that a spokesman for the group was said to have remarked that the Jews had enough anti-Semitism to combat without having this film thrown on screens all over the country. . . .

The premiere of Nat N. Dorfman’s new comedy “Errant Lady,” will mark the appearance of Leona Powers, who plays the leading role. Last season she played in the Guild play “Mary of Scotland,” and during the summer was seen on the stage at Skowhegan, one of the better summer theatres.

‘MASS STRUGGLE’

“Mass Struggle,” the new Soviet talking film, which opened at the Acme Theatre yesterday, deals with the oppression of the Jewish people in the ghettoes of Ukrainia under the Czar and portrays the revolt of the peasants of Ukrainia in the 18th Century and indicates how in this revolt the poor peasant protected and defended the poor Jew, joining in their ranks, all the oppressed peoples of the country.

“Mass Struggle” is a Soviet production. It has been prepared for its American showing with English titles and an explanatory English foreword. The characters in this picture speak the language of their nationalities — Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and Jewish.