The Theatre: New Plays: Nov. 5, 1923

Scaramouche. All that remains for, Scaramouche is that it be turned into an opera. First a pleasant popular novel; then a singularly fine cinema (TIME,Oct. 8); finally a moderately entertaining example of the cloak and sword in drama. An illegitimate child, a revolutionist, a wandering mountebank, finally “the most powerful man in Paris” during the Revolution; thus the fortunes of Scaramouche unfold. Unfortunately the quiet talents of that excellent actor Sidney Blackmer fit wretchedly the heroic velvet and sash of the hero. When fiery flame is needed he only smoulders pleasantly. Otherwise the cast and the production are considerably better than the arrant melodrama deserves.

John Corbin: “The characters were puppets long dangled, and the situations somehow missed fire.”

Stephen Rathbun: “Colorful, atmospheric melodrama.”

The Swan. One of those rare and treasured experiences that more than justifies even a season that can tolerate the tawdriness of Red Light Annie and Abie’s Irish Rose is The Swan by Franz Molnar. So fine it is that its torch advances immediately to the van of these 50 fitful flames of drama winking at each other across the New York night. Such plays as this give playwrights actors, directors stuff to dream on. It is a castle in Spain, captive and come abroad to display its graces to a murmuring world.

The plot of The Swan is not original. It tells of a beautiful (modern) princess in love with a handsome tutor; of a prince who would marry and make her his queen; of the ancient axiom that there is no royal road to happiness. Yet the very venerability of this plot in its application to the play betokens the master artificer. For only meticulous meditation long after one has left the playhouse discloses the deception. Such deception is admissible; indeed it is a privileged stratagem of genius.

Yet Molnar’s credit column cannot justly be starred with all the eulogy. The Charles Frohman Co. have created a perfect medium for the transference of his inventions. Translation, setting, costumes, direction are virtually without a flaw. Yet all of these would be valueless without the players.

To Eva Le Gallienne is entrusted the important title role. Miss Le Gallienne is a very quiet actress, expressing with a poignant emphasis that she who would be queen cannot employ the palace as a playroom for emotion. Basil Rathbone is her tutor; Philip Merrivale her prince. They seem manufactured, moulded, polished for their parts. Among the remainder of the consistently competent company are the capable veterans Hilda Spong and Alison Skipworth.

From the tenor of these remarks it might erroneously be inferred that The Swan possesses tragic, ravenesque propensities. The Swan is a comedy. The wisdom of it is equaled, nay surpassed, by the pungence of its wit.

Alexander Woollcott: “Silvery, delicately wrought and utterly delightful.”

John Corbin: “The audience rose with a spontaneity and intensity of enthusiasm which have seldom been surpassed in our theatre.”

Nobody’s Business. Again the problem arises of a poor girl at the mercy of New York. If this sort of thing continues, poor girls will stop coming to New York. And then where will managers be for their gallery goddesses? Francine Larrimore and four or five prospective lovers are currently concerned. The activities are moderately amusing, immoderately incredible.

Burns Mantle: ” The audience found much to admire.”

Alan Dale: “I wonder how women stand for this kind of a play.”

Oedipus Rex. Oedipus (literally, “swell-foot”), tyrant of Thebes, is many years dead. Yet Sir John Martin-Harvey, the English actor, has brought him to life again, not a block from Broadway, and the credit of the proceeding must in no small measure be given to one Sophocles, late of Athens.

For Sophocles has arisen to take a slap at the upstart crows—Shakespeare and all the rest—who have laughed at the Greek rules of tragedy and said: “What? Shall the action of a play take place all in one day? All in one place? And shall there be no violence done on the stage? Avaunt, such methods! They rob the stage of its glorious emotions.”

Sophocles replies nightly on a Manhattan stage, where he retells the story of Oedipus, who could not escape from fate. Hardly is the audience seated when down the aisles of the great theatre surge the moaning, plague-stricken people of Thebes. Flappers in the row behind one abruptly cease their tittering. Upon the stage, to the doors of Oedipus’ palace, swarms the mob asking succour of its King. Oepidus comes forth, in his stately cothurni and promises that what can be done will be done. His wife’s brother, Creon, has been sent to Delphi to ask what must be done. Then comes Creon from the oracle bearing tidings that to dispel the plague they must cast forth from their numbers an unclean thing, the murderer of Laius, who was King beforeOedipus, and the first husband of the Queen. Oedipus calls down a curse upon the murderer’s head and sends for Tiresias, the blind soothsayer,to divine who is this murderer.

Tiresias comes but will not name the murderer. Oedipus taunts him with his blindness, demands that he tell for the sake of the people of Thebes. At last Tiresias says: ” Thou, King, art the murderer.” Enraged, Oedipus silences him and sends him forth.

Again Creon approaches and Oedipus charges him with an attempt upon his Kingship by conspiring with Tiresias to say that he, Oedipus, is the murderer. As they quarrel, Jocasta, the Queen, comes forth and pacifies them and sends her brother away. She tells Oedipus it is impossible he is the murderer of Laius. Laius had been slain by robbers on the way to Delphi. Only one of Laius’ small retinue had returned to tell the story. Then Oedipus takes fright; for he had been to Delphi and the oracle had told him that he would slay his father and know the flesh of his mother; returning close to the very spot where Laius had been killed, an aged traveler had blocked his way; and Oedipus had slain him. The Queen laughs at his fear of prophecies, saying that she too had had a son whom Tiresias prophesied would kill his father, wed his mother. But in its infancy the child had been exposed upon a mountain and died, and the child’s father, Laius, had perished by other hands.

Then, unexpectedly, a messenger arrives from Corinth where Oedipus had been reared as the son of King Polybus, to say that Polybus is dead. Oedipus raises his hands to Heaven in thankfulness that he has not slain his father. The messenger replies: “Small fear, thou wert not Polybus’ son. I brought thee to Polybus as a child when I had got thee from a shepherd in the mountains.” Jocasta, suddenly realizing the situation, flees into the palace, crying.

But Oedipus is not satisfied until the shepherd is brought who had delivered him to the Corinthian. The shepherd comes but will not tell how he discovered the child. Oedipus threatens him and finally he speaks to say that Oedipus is the son of Laius and Jocasta—the one of whom Oedipus had slain, the other of whom he had married. Crazed by the news, Oedipus rushes into the palace.

There is an outcry within. A messenger comes forth to say that Jocasta has hanged herself; that Oedipus, having taken down her body, plucked a gold pin from her breast and tore out both his eyes. Then Oedipus comes forth and bidding his children—his sisters—goodbye, trudges out of Thebes a blind outcast. The three flappers in the row behind sniffle audibly. Sophocles has moved them to tears.