Page
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1932.
COMMENCING SUNDAY, DEC. 25 AT
THE CENTRAL.
STRIPED DEMON Eternal hatred in AND MURDEROUS their bloodshot eyes!
BLACK!
FRANKE BUCK'S
Amazing sound+film record of his greatest adventure!
Red mouths hungry for the other's blood! The jungle screamed as the ancient enemies fought to the death in this white-fang drama of the wilds!
BRING EM BACK ALIVE
His picture thousand times mora thrilltag than his book?
RKO-RADIO Picture Produced
by the Van Beuren Corporation Every Foot of this Picture Was Made in the Heart of the Malayan Jungle Country! Bare-handed man against forocious jungle kings1 No human pes could write such throbbing dramal Stagecraft palos before the rushing sweep of this beast pageant from the book of lifel
DATE LINE
Directed by Clyde E. £lliolf
Art and Drama
THE CHINA MAIL.
The Secret Of The Farce
Tragedy Turned Upside-Down
A NOVEL VIEW
(By Sydney Carroll).
MATHESON LANG AS
WELLINGTON.
Matheson Lang has acquired a play about the Duke of Wellington, called "The Iron Duke," which he intends to produce in the spring. The author is Robina Millar, the well-known Glasgow Journalist, who wrote "Thunder on the Left," a play that was seen at the Duke of York's several years ago.
Basil Foster is also looking | ahead. He has bought a comedy by Archie Menzies and a collabora- tor who hides his identity under the name of "Major," but he. 'Is unlikely to need it until next year, for "Orders are Orders" 18
a big success at the Shaftesbury. bury.
"]
All plays are notoriously unde- made thousands of pounda on pendable, but no form of piece in-a farcical formula known only to making force ever written. tended for the stage is more un-themselves. Every syndicate pro- "My Hat" the events and the Icertain than farce. It is surely moter in the theatre world uses characters are so Incredible and so [harder to write, more difficult to the financial triumphs of farces involved that they cease to be
produco, and more trying to enact like "Charley's Aunt," "The Pri- amusing, because they have than any other form of play. Ivate Secretary," and "When foundation in truth. is, incidentally, also frequently Knights were Bold." to balt his exasperating to watch.
hook for a "sugar daddy.”
The Solid Foundation.
The unfavourable Press com-
Paradox Of Farce.
по
This is the paradox of farco. (In its aim, which is the ridiculous, ments upon "My Hat," produced Yet it is the commonest thing injit must never lose sight of the at the New Theatre, prompt me to the theatre for farcea continually essential verities. And people inquire from all who are competent to crop up, the fun in which is far must really suffer and, really en- to express an opinion-What Is a to seek, and which even brilliant dure before we can start laughing good farce, and why?
acting fails to save.
at them.
Here we have a play "revised The great farce actors of the The priceless representation at jand produced" by such a past, world are mostly tragedians who the Strand by Mr. Sydney Howard master of farce as Leslie Henson, have lost their way or are handi-jof a discomfited butler, put into all presented by one of the most auc-capped by some physical pecu-sorts of laughable predicaments by cessful managements interested in Harity from fulfilling their trus his authors and giving them all an this light and highly profitable destiny. The nearer to true pathos air of intense actuality, is a case order of play, acted by as notable the farceur can go without ever very much to the point.
a gathering of comedians as the getting there, the more we laugh In Mr. Henson's last experiment, West-end of London could wish at him,
fun is sought for by means
of for, and yet failing to meet any For there is something in us all suspicious wives who have no reasonable measure of critical ap-fsupremely cruel that compels us to justification for their suspicions proval, and being described by one laugh at others' misfortunes. I and by a high explosive which ob of our most eminent appraisers as did not find "My Hat" in the least!viously would not blow up a moa- "a piece of horseplay" at which funny, except when Kay' Hammond quito. The one success of the en- evon a borse could not reasonably was on the stage, though I admit tire cast is made in the part of a Jaugh.
I heard much friendly laughter servant who really does have cause
I have, in big time, sufficiently around me. And I ascribe the fact to be terrifed and whose character
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covered myself with ridicule try-to the circumstance that the meets with true farcical fortitude CEYLON
ing to write for the stage irrespon- troubles arising to the parties in the blows showered on, hor by fate. sible nonsense. These was a cer- the plot never seemed real enough Loss of sincerity is as lament- tain method in my felly, but my or serious enough to call for my able a defect in the writing of a plan, for what it was worth, ceased attention in any form of mood. farce as in the playing of it. Odd to be apparent almost as soon as When "Babs" puts on woman's It is, but none the less accurate, it left the hands of the stenogra- clothes in "Charley's Aunt" and that the more seriously farces are pher. Is there any royal road to endures a world of agonies in con- taken the more laughable they success in farce%
sequence, audiences have laughed prove. To be consciously funny is The Tom Walls-Ralph Lynn com-at him and them, because the the humorist's decease. bination at the Aldwych would plausibility and the conviction of There are countless recipes for seem to indicate that there the play's basis are solid and un-farce, but all of them should con- is. Mr. Firth Shephard and assailable. The same state of tain one common ingredient-
: Leslie Henson' have things applies to every money-Tragedy turned upside down.
Mr.
TEA
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