The Theatre: New Plays in Manhattan: Nov. 17, 1930

Elizabeth The Queen is a sabre-rattling, pompous historical pageant which relates Maxwell Anderson’s idea of the love of the Virgin Queen for the Earl of Essex. Author Lytton Strachey’s notion to the contrary, Mr. Anderson’s Elizabeth (Lynn Fontanne) and Essex (Alfred Lunt) are heroic amorists whose sturdy devotion is thwarted only because they love power more. To indicate her robustness Mrs. Lunt feels called upon to pitch her usually pleasant voice very deep in her throat and to speak her lines as loudly as possible, the effect of which is not unlike a small child trying to imitate her grandfather. And to show that she is taking the part of a woman of about 50 she has made herself quite hideous, with drooping eyes and sagging mouth doubtful even in a 17th Century lady. Mr. Lunt is imposing as the doughty Essex, who deeply resents his Sovereign’s curtailment of his expedition to Ireland and who (according to the playwright) could have taken England from Elizabeth had he not been given to understand that she would share the realm with him, an error in judgment which costs him his head. The long, windy dialog which he is forced to wade through—resembling the weighty prose of a Bulwer-Lytton historical drama—is spoken in an unconvincing approximation of what the playwright imagines to be Elizabethan speech. The play can have little suspense, for bright theatregoers are aware of the facts in the story, and few startling liberties are taken with the traditional plot to add spectator-interest. The background is supplied by the stuffed figures of Raleigh, Cecil, Bacon. Although the season’s first appearance of the Theatre Guild’s famed Lunt & Fontanne is a perennial signal for critical hosannas, Elizabeth The Queen remains the sort of thing worst done by high school dramatic clubs, best done by the Guild. The Vanderbilt Revue. There are comparatively few funnywomen, none of whom are funnier than hearty, contagious, coarse Lulu McConnell. Four years ago she created the part of an immensely amusing low-life in a little show called Peggy Ann on the same stage to which she returned last week as the chief comic in The Vanderbilt Revue. In one of her skits — revived from her vaudeville repertoire — she is invited to play bridge at a neighbor’s apartment. By the time she is ready to go home she has disrupted her hosts’ family life, thrown most of the furniture over, and, roaring drunk, insisted on taking the neighbors’ hats, coats and liquor away with her. The show could stand some severe editing and in certain of the numbers better direction would add a distinction which is lacking. But there is plenty of good music (notably: “Blue Again,” “Ex-Gigolo”), most of which is sung by personable Evelyn Hoey (Fifty Million Frenchmen). Flashiest dancer is smiling Jimmy Ray, who fidgets and tapdances gracefully and silently. There is also a dramatized fable called “The Jackdaw of Rheims” in which the jackdaw is a midget toedancer. Lulu McConnell was born in Kansas City, Mo. — how many years ago she is unwilling to divulge. She worked with a local stock company, then in vaudeville for seven years. Her first experience in a revue was with Snapshots of 1922, since which time she has alternated between musicomedy, variety, audible cinema. When in repose her face sometimes looks tired and fiftyish, but ten years drop from her appearance when she is occupied or doing something she likes—for instance, driving an automobile as fast as it can go. The Well of Romance. Somewhere between the opening chorus and the final curtain of The Well of Romance, Preston Sturges (Strictly Dishonorable) forgot that he had set out to write a burlesque comic opera and settled down to hammer out the sort of entertainment which used to be so admirably handled by Johann Strauss and Franz Lehar but whose present day imitations are so consistently lustreless. That Mr. Sturges originally intended to poke fun at oldtime operetta is evident in his choice of name for his mythical kingdom—Magnesia. Very lamely some of his characters are dubbed Lieutenant Schpitzelberger, Baron von Sprudelwasser. The only comic intention of the librettist which comes off is his making the prime minister a fairly funny Bronx Jew. In general, however, The Well of Romance creeps along through interminable big chorus numbers, precious little ballads, noisy musical protestations of love for old Magnesia. Best that can be said for the production is that spectators get a chance to see Norma Terris (Show Boat) with her hair down. As Good As New. Being an exceptionally good mummer, Otto Kruger is always capable of a first-rate performance no matter how weak the show is—and he has performed in some frail attractions (Nobody’s Money, Will Shakespeare, The Long Road). As Tom Banning, the philandering plutocrat in As Good As New, Mr. Kruger again demonstrates that it is hard to smother a good actor beneath a poor script. He is surprised in the apartment of his paramour. As a protest against her mother’s impending divorce, his daughter threatens to run off and live with her current boy friend. This brings about a reconciliation, but at the final curtain Mr. Kruger is already straining at the domestic leash, indicates that he will break away again as soon as possible. Best scene: Mr. Kruger trying to extricate himself from an embarrassing situation when his wife and a detective raid his hideaway. Room of Dreams. This play had a complicated birth—written by Daniel Coxe from a translation by James L. A. Burrell and Anne Sprague MacDonald of the original Viennese of Ernest Raoul Weiss. But polyglot parentage cannot be entirely responsible for the nonsensical finished product which ushered in the New York Theatre Assembly’s season. It seems that Lucien, unable to win Adrienne—his best friend’s wife—has his rooms decorated precisely like the intimate chambers of his beloved. This happy eccentricity enables the producers to shift the scenes from one home to another without the expense of another set. And it causes some confusion when Adrienne’s husband wanders in and discovers that his friend is living in a replica of his wife’s bedroom. All ends well, however, and despite the naughty promise which some of the lines suggest, the cast emerges as clean as a whistle. Room Of Dreams is pretty uninspired theatrical froth.