The Theatre: New Plays: Jun. 21, 1926

The Half-Naked Truth. A slim little comedy slipped quietly in last week, sold a few laughs, and shocked no one. It is a play about a street urchin who posed for a city statue. That was the point of the title. It seems more than probable that the Civic Virtue statue storm of the Hylan administration years ago in New York inspired the endeavor. With Irish street comedy and thin slices of plain folks philosophy it wandered along amiably enough. There were no eminent performers. The opening night a grey kitten strolled unexpectedly into the middle of one of the emotional crises.

Beyond Evil. For the first time in the memory of this generation’s playgoers, a play in a first-class Manhattan theatre was booed. After three acts of laughing and derisive whistles the curtain fell. Great and hollow were the catcalls. For this, the evening was memorable.

The play was not bad enough to warrant such abuse. It was, to be sure, not good enough to warrant more than light laughter and a few long yawns. There have, however, been worse plays these recent seasons, several of them. The outcry at Beyond Evil was simply an indication of the growing indignance of metropolitan audiences at high-flown, false emotion badly acted. There is a sound corrective in this frankness. Actors and authors will hesitate before risking unbridled ridicule.

A highly nervous woman, who is bored with her dull husband, is the central figure. She has a lover who deserts. From him she turns to a Negro lawyer. Finally she takes poison. The play was frank, at times lewd, but never sensationally so. It was not the dirt of which the audience disapproved; it was the dullness. Mary Blair, able heroine of many of Eugene O’Neill’s best plays, had the lead. Her performance was unaccountably inept. She fled the cast after the opening performance.

The Merry World. A combination revue from London and Manhattan landed loudly in the middle of a quiet week and pleased everybody. When the Shuberts finished producing The Great Temptations at the Winter Garden a few weeks back, they had left over a vast supply of brightly painted scenery, much music, several dances. These were hastily stuffed into an English revue which Albert de Courville was quietly concocting. The curious hybrid shook itself rapidly together and appeared as a most amusing creature. Sketches from London served most of the laughter, and there was a lot. Chorus girls from the U. S. did most of the Charlestons, of which there were many. There were 34 scenes, with a noticeable absence of nudity. Best of all was Morris Harvey, rotund, dignified comedian from England, who can be funny and behave himself simultaneously.