Critical Moments

Four new plays timidly pushed their respective ways into a crowded Broadway this past week and three of them, I am sure, will tarry there but a short while. “On to Fortune” (Fulton), “Loose Moments” (Vanderbilt), “It’s You I Want” (Cort), and “Field of Ermine” (Mansfield), are this week’s entries. The last named I have not seen at this writing.

ON TO FORTUNE

This play, by Lawrence Langner and Armina Marshall, is a burlesque on the banking business, a likely theme, but the authors fall into the error of trying to be too funny and their vehicle contains enough situations for at least three plays. In consquence, “On to Fortune” collapses under its own weight.

A cast which can point to such players as Roy Atwell, Ilka Chase and Glenn Anders, is certain to perform with skill, but alas, the material given to these actors by the authors is not worth their talents.

The plot concerns a family of bankers in a small town. The inevitable black sheep of the family is present and he removes a million dollars from the vaults and hides the money in a piano. Most of the play tells of the family’s attempt to keep both their own reputation and the bank’s in good repute. The humor of this comedy is based on these attempts.

LOOSE MOMENTS

Courtnay Savage and Bertram Hobbs wrote “Loose Moments” for the “barnyard circuit.” Last Summer it was produced at Ogunquit, Maine, for the edification of the vacationers. At that time it was greeted with warm smiles, but now it has been brought to Broadway and the indolent setting is gone. On Broadway, “Loose Moments” is just another comedy. Its setting is a Southern mansion where tourists are put up for the night. The proprietor is a sweet young thing. The play is given movement by bringing together in this one-night stand an assorted group of characters. The usual complications, bedroom and otherwise, ensue, and finally the natural conclusions are reached. It is a slow-moving, often faltering attempt to inject pulsation into a very ancient theme.

IT’S YOU I WANT

If this were a burlesque on bedroom farces to end all bedroom farces, I could recommend it to you without reservation, but it is nothing more than an adaptation of Maurice Braddell’s English comedy for American consumption, and not a very good adaptation because the original is pretty thin by itself.

It is the story of a London Don Juan whom all husbands fear. At the moment he is trying to extricate himself from an affair with the wife of his best friend. The best friend, not to be left alone, has been cutting up with the wife of another gentleman in their set. To make things even more complicated, a cousin of the Don Juan is in love with still another lady, who in turn is infatuated with Don Juan. What happens—the three couples find themselves in the same house. The ladies each have a separate bedroom while the gentlemen put up in any lying-down spaces they can find. Only the Don Juan knows the true state of things and he tries to keep the ball rolling so that it won’t hit him. You can imagine the rest—everybody is in everybody else’s room. All of which should be pretty funny, but there is too much sameness about the situations. It is as though six people were telling the same joke at the same time.

HOW RIGHT ARE CRITICS?

Twice yearly Variety prints what it calls the “Dramatic Critics’ Box Score.” The theatrical paper clips the reviews written by a daily critic and charts them as to its conclusions. The final reckoning is based on the success or failure of each play “caught.” If the critic said a play was good and it runs for more than eight weeks, he is marked “right.” If he says a play is poor and it fails to last that long, he also earns a “right” point. If a critic is noncommittal, he loses in the final percentage. Variety is interested only in the commercial aspect of the show business. If a critic writes glowing accounts of a great play that fails to please the public, Variety makes no exception in its scoring methods, and he is marked wrong.

At the present time John Mason Brown leads the daily critics. Out of sixty-seven plays he was right fifty-eight times, wrong eight times and offered no opinion once. Gilbert Gabriel is second and he is followed by Anderson, Atkinson, Mantle, Hammond, Sobel, Lock-ridge and Garland. Variety itself, leads all of them with seventy-eight rights and five wrongs.

This system is interesting because it demonstrates how powerful an influence dramatic critics exert on playgoers. It is rare for a play to survive even a light barrage of unfavorable criticism. This in turn means that the condition of the American stage is placed squarely up to these same critics. If they lose their heads over cheap, tawdry productions, then that sort of thing becomes the order of the day. If, on the other hand, they praise the worthwhile and more serious plays, the entire theatre benefits.

THE CINEMA

Leslie Howard, who may be seen on the stage in the “Petrified Forest,” will be visible to audiences at the Music Hall this week. His picture, “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” from the novel by Baroness Orczy, is the main attraction. Merle Oberon is the female lead. . . . At the Paramount, Claudette Colbert is the star of “The Gilded Lily.” . . . “David Copperfield” remains at the Capitol and “Clive of India” stays over at the Rivoli. . . . “Chapayev” will start its fifth week at the Cameo.