Critical Moments

“Peace on Earth,” the pacifist play by George Sklar and Paul Peters which ran seriously along down on Fourteenth street, and was then brought up to the Forty-fourth Street Theatre by A. L. Jones, was not able to make the Broadway grade After two weeks of playing to a sparsely populated house the producer decided to call things off. It will close on Saturday. The authors, however are unmoved by the termination as they are busily engaged in supervising rehearsals of a now vehicle which they call “Stevedore,” also a serious piece, which deals realistically with what happens to a Negro labor organizer who is framed on a rape charge. I had the opportunity of reading the script and I can report that it is one of the most compelling things I have read in a very long time. The Theatre Union will be the producers. and already a book publisher has signified his intention of issuing the script in book form.

BACK TO THE BARNYARD

The chickens, cows and pigs will again be entertained with a summer of drama. Last year practically every barn in Connecticut and Massachusetts housed at least one “little” theatre group and from recent announcements I learn that the hills will again ring with the echoes of actors declaiming lines. Up at Hurleyville, the Morningside Hotel Theatre will be a favorite testing spot for playwrights. Various theatrical productions scheduled for Broadway appearances in the Fail will have tryouts. One of the first to get under way will be Jack Blue’s “Champagne Cocktail.” In addition the organization, which is known as the Morningside Players, will stage a number of last season’s Broadway successes.

EGGS AND THE ACTOR

From O. P. Greneker comes the story that Oliver Wakefield, good looking English comedian in the current Ziegfeld Follies, is having a perfectly horrid time! It seems that one of his bits in the show calls for him to be struck by an egg. It is thrown with some force. In this scene Mr. Wakefield wears evening dress. Here is his problem–If soft boiled eggs are used they would spatter all over the actor’s clothes and, as he has to supply them himself, that would be both costly and embarrassing. If hard boiled are used, then he finds himself being constantly bruised. I would suggest that rubber or clay eggs be used. But then that would spoil a good story.

ZATKIN’S LADY TO OPEN AND OTHER STAGE NOTES

“The Lady From the Sea,” the Ibsen revival which Nate Zatkin is producing, will open during the week of May 7 at the Little Theatre. Clement Wilenchick and Margaret English have been added to the cast … Virgil Thomson, who wrote the music for “Four Saints in 3 Acts,” will conduct the orchestra for the remainder of the opera’s run at the Empire … “Picnic,” a new play by Gretchen Damrosch, will commence on the evening of April 30.

FROM THE CINEMA

By far the most amusing picture of the season is “You’re Telling Me,” with W. C. Fields playing the lead. As the drink-loving father who always manages to say the wrong thing at the right time, he gives one of the best humorous performances seen on a screen since the days of Chaplin. It may be seen at the Paramount. Theatres this week. Don’t miss it. It is even worth sitting through Roxy’s tedious act … “The House of Rothschild” was adapted from a play by George Hembert Westley. This obscure little man of sixty, who spends his life going through newspaper files, picking out items and writing short remarks about them for The Boston Evening Transcript, wrote the play years ago, sent a copy to George Arliss and heard nothing until last year when he received a check for the rights. When the picture opened in Boston, it took the press department two days to locate the author and convince him that he should see the picture. He liked it … Fred Astaire, the best tap and soft shoe dancer in show business, will make another picture for RKO. I do hope this time they let him dance. In “Flying Down to Rio” he did about 100 feet of stepping. It struck me as being pretty silly to hire a great dancer and then cut his routine down to nothing. The same thing happened in “Wonder Bar.” Hal LeRoy was billed as one of the leading players but he appeared in but one scene and in blackface at that, and danced but two choruses of a song.