Critical Moments

There are not many of what might be called lighter moments in Sidney Howard’s serious play “Yellow Jack,” which is now doing its share of business at the Martin Beck Theatre, but those that there are, are supplied by Samuel Levine, a young Jewish actor who plays the role of a Jewish soldier who has volunteered to act as a human guinea pig for experimental purposes.

“Yellow Jack” is the entirely stirring drama that enacts what happened when United States medical officers set out to discover the cause and cure of yellow fever. The introduction of a Jewish soldier in the experiment is fiction. In reality the volunteers who offered their lives were Cubans and soldiers from the middle-west, but Sidney Howard in adapting the idea for the stage added for dramatic effect four soldier characters, a southerner, a mid-westerner, an Irishman and a Jew. As I intimated above Samuel Levine was given the part of the Jewish soldier.

BORN IN RUSSIA

The thin dark Levine is a native of Russia and came to this country when a small boy. As he is now a successful character actor it is but fitting that Levine made his first money selling newspapers, in fact he did almost everything but act before he discovered his histrionic talents. He worked on a freighter, in carnivals and even owned a dress factory. His first stage appearance was in “Wall Street” in 1927. A succession of parts followed. Among the productions he acted in were “Dinner at Eight,” in which he played Max Kane, the theatrical agent, “Wonder Boy,” “Three Times the Hour,” “Headquarters,” “This Man’s Town,” “Tin Pan Alley,” “Solitaire,” “Jarnegan” and the Players Club revival of “Julius Caesar.”

SHAKESPEARE IN NIGHT CLUB

Levine has almost always found himself in a role calling for comedy. “I hate to think that I’m destined to remain a Jewish comedian forever,” he remarked sadly, “I hope some day to prove that I can do other things. If I can’t, I think I’d better go back to reciting Shakespeare in a night club.”

This reference to reciting Shakespeare in a night club was very vivid to Levine. It seems that not long ago while in Florida he got a job in a place called “The Two Bit Club.” He was hired to tell jokes but found that his sense of humor dried up when he was confronted with the wet diners. He finally solved his problem by reciting, with grimaces, excerpts from Shakespeare’s plays. He was fired when the female proprietor of this night club found out what he was doing. She thought he was making up the lines himself and anyway, she didn’t think his material was any good.

MADE HIS OWN PART

While “Yellow Jack” was in rehearsal Levine demonstrated why he has become one of the better character actors on Broadway. Instead of dogmatically reciting the lines written for him by the author Levine would make his own changes, adding a Yiddish idiom or a phrase that was characteristic of the role he was portraying. Director McClintic saw the value of Levine’s suggestions and the lines remained in the play.