1933-03-08 — Page 3

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 1933.

Art and Drama

A FLAWLESS ALIBI.

It was A. A. Milne who set a new fashion in mystery plays in "The Fourth Wall" when he let the au- dience into the secret soon after the curtain rose. Anthony Armstrong has adopted the same excellent ex- pedient in "Ten Minute Alibi."

The criminal's alibi is supposed to be "flawless," and the audience bas the fun of watching the detectives hunting for clues. Sinclair Hill, the film director, is producing the play, and the cast is one of the best ever seen at Swiss. Cottage. It includes: Cella Johnson, Robert Douglas, Anthony Ireland, George Merritt and John Garside.

CENTURY OF PROGRESS EXHIBITION

tor of paintings, are, it

THE CHINA MAIL.

England Rejects Play Of Genius

Ban Still On "The

Green Pastures"

APPEAL FOR RECONSIDERATION

THE

(By Alexander Woollrott, The Distinguished American Dramatle Critic.)

NOEL COWARDS

LATEST.

Noel Coward's latest play, "De- sign for Living" is being "tried out" in Cleveland before the New York production. The three chief char- acters are a playwright, an artist, and a woman-all unmarried-and they are being taken by the author, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. The "design" is gay and very audacious, and after the American Tun the play will probably be brought to London with the same company.

play so deeply religious in its spirit, so full of nourishment for THE play which is incomparably It is a small piccaninny's notion of religious feeling, so simple in its the loftiest and most beauti-Creation, a divine comedy played piety. That would not be accord- ful ever written by an American by negro actors and bathed in spiri-ing to plan.

Had I seen "The Fourteenth dramatist, and the only one which tuals sung by choirs invisible." could conceivably be described as

I should like-in

Now a roundabout Division Enters Heavent"

that was more like it. He was re- work of genius-as acted and as fashion-to impart to you some

extravaganza at Searching throughout the country, staged it is, I suppose, the finest sense of its favour, its quality, commending an

There the music-ball in which the entire both in museums and in the great achievement in the history of the its gentle, homely grace. private collections, for works of art American theatre-is still, at the strays into New York from time to Holy Family is made a coarse jest suitable to be shown in the forth-end of its third year, playing there time a strolling player from Dublin and Christ himself presented as a coming Century of Progress exhibi-to large and deeply moved audien-named J. M. Kerrigan. As I have languishing androgyne in pale blue not run into him for several years satin trousers, silver spate, and tion, Robert R. Harshe, director of ces. the Art Institute of Chicago, and But two great countries to which now, I supose he has strolled off to with a rose stuck "coquettishly in Daniel Catton Rich, nasociate cura-America might be proud to send it Hollywood and is there sheepishly his halo

is said, will not have it. As I discovered engaged in acting for a lens.

Yes, I had seen it. And, having seen it, I realised that Moscow leaving no stone unturned. The enduring a recent visit to Moscow, it A Song of Simple Beliefs.

was, indeed, in no mood to see any tire gallery space of the Art In-is excluded not only from England, It is Kerrigan's avocation to

sing sweetly when the fit is on him.tures."

production of "The Green Pas- stitute will be placed at its disposal. but from Russia. The fair le due to open June I and:

They both reject it, and for dir-lt is his peculiar merit that, like

But if Russia is right in the will extend until November 1.

ferent reasons. And not merely my old friend Paul Robeson, he for different reasons, but for op-needs no accompanist, but, with matter, then I think England must posite reasons, for mutually contra-glass in one hand and pipe in the be wrong. I have been told that dictory reasons. It occurs to another, he will stand against the here was no stupid bureaucratic unconcerned passer-by that one of wall, tilt his head back, close his play from overseas, but rather that opposition to a nobly imagined them must be in error.

eyes, and just sing-most engag the Lord Chamberlain, with regret, Piccaninny's Ideas of Creation. ingly, most endearingly.

excluded "The Green Pastures" The inner and outer gatewaye The play is the one called "The Sametimes, when the lights are as well as the guardroom have Green Pastures." Concerning its low, the company a fit one, and the from this country because it did been discovered at the Roman veto here by the Lord Chamberlain moment somehow impalpably right, contravene some ordinance, law, or legionary fortress at Caerleon, two years ago there was so consi-he will sing the

old fifteenth of the Deity on the stage.

ruling against the representation near Newport, Monmouthshire, as derable a pother that the discussion (century canticle of Joseph and a result of recent excavation work even reached the House of Com-Mary and the cherry-trees.

"Most Reverent Play of The interest of the Ofce of Works mons. It is, I believe, the only Do you know 7 It is a song

Our Time." has been attracted to the site, American play which ever had a born of a time when people, who A technicality, if you like, but a which can only be excavated by notice, whether favourable or other-ihad never heard of the Life Force. binding one. If it be true that he the local district wise, in the official Parliamentary, believed simply, cosily. Intimately. (found this position necessary but permission of council, as it is common land. reports.

jand thought of the Holy Fomily as uncomfortable, I should think he These discoveries followed other As you know-it was the classes beings not unlike themselves who might welcome escape from it, if Interesting finds in which the nt Professor Copeland at Harvard had lived not so very long before only by another technicality, and amphitheatre and many

Roman that were never informed, only re-and not so very far away. In the I should like at least to suggest buildings have been located. minded-as you know, "The Green next village perhaps. Or maybe that in "The Green Pastures" it to Thousands of persons have visited Pastures" is a negro miracle play. on the other side of the hill. not the Deity which is represented

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The canticle told of a time when on the stage at all, bat a small Joseph and Mary were walking boy's notion of God, which is quite through a countryside and came to another matter.

a cherry orchard rich with fruit.] I doubt if any of the hundreds ¡Mary, weary and hungry, asked of thousands who have attended Joseph to pick her some cherries this latter-day miracle play have that she might cal. Joseph, ever a thought for one moment that the slightly comic figure in the plays benign and gracious old negro who and songs of that day, declined to plays the central role was suppos exert himself. He said if she was ed, even in the make-believe of so hungry she might pick the, that moment, really to be playing cherries herself.

God, any more than Diana Man- Miracle of the Cherry-trees. ners, as the quickened statue of But she told him she was heavy the Madonna in "The Miracle," with child and could not. At that was playing the mother of Jesus. he laughed and suggested that she We have, then, the ironic oddity ask whoever had got her with child of a ruling intended to prevent o do her fetching and carrying. irreverence in the theatre actual- At that the voice of the unbornly operating to exclude the most reverent play of our time-or at child was heard to speak.

"Cherry-trees, cherry-trees," the least the one which, on that score child's voice said, "bow down that alone, the Soviet Union would my mother mey eat." And lo, at never tolerate on any of its stages. that bidding, all the boughs of the As I said before, one of these nosi- trees-how I wish I had words for tions must be untenable.

I hap- the wander in Kerrigan's voice aspen to think England's is. he sang this verse-all the boughs Public & Official Objections. of all the trees bent low to the Anyway, I do wish that the Lord, ground.

Chamberlain might get together Well, the song would end in with Stalin at some theatrical silence and the minstrel would go Lausanne and come to an agree- to the fireplace, bending to knock ment on the matter.

I suppose the ashes from his pipe. And all that, just as the present genera- about him in the group one could tion in the theatre has been suffer- see eyelashes wat with quick inled to witness without visible im- explicable tears. And I tell the pairment plays which were official- story here only because I can think ly considered too strong meat for of nothing save that old canticle their grandmothers forty years which has the same quality as 80, so in time the ban against "The Green Pastures," and which!"The Green Pastures" will be lift- brings to eyes the world around ed.

the self-same tears.

The only advantage to be gain-

I have wanted to speak to ed by waiting twenty years for it people, old and young, in a dis-is that then Paul Robeson will be persing audience and ask them full enough of years to play, the why they had watched the play

piccaninny's God. with those tears in their eyes. II. instead, I held my tongue, it may have been because I thought they could not tell me. Or because they were crying for the lost innocence: of the world.

Moscow's Coarse Spectacles, Now when I was in Moscow in November I found a great interest. In the American stage and a great, eagerness to raid it for translation | purposes. I left commissioned to send them all manner of scripts, with spacial Instructions to get them the libretto and score of the current Kaufman-Gershwin {cess "Of Thes 1 Sing.”

BUC-

They also wanted the libretto and score of "Pinafore," which the Russians have not got around to yet, and of any negro plays, for they are inordinately interested In negrocs. Naturally, when that suggestion was raised, I mentioned "The Green Pastures."

At that they swooned away, Or If. not that precisely, at least one of the great directora assured, me that they would not dare to do a

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