The Theatre: New Plays in Manhattan: Nov. 28, 1932

Dear Jane (by Eleanor Holmes Hinkley; Civic Repertory Theatre, producer). ”Acting,” wrote Novelist Jane Austen, “seldom satisfied me.” It is inconceivable that either the acting or the playwriting of Dear Jane, a dramatic biography of clever Novelist Austen, would have satisfied her. Seldom if ever has the capable Civic Repertory company dulled its fine tools on material so obdurate.

Dear Jane opens with a prolog in London’s Cheshire Cheese tavern. Time: the night of Dec. 16, 1775. There sits grumbling Dr. Johnson, eating dirtily with James Boswell, Joshua Reynolds and David Garrick. The talk is not of the Yankee rebellion but of women—how silly, superficial, lacking in humor and the ability for “true creation” they are. Just to show up the testy lexicographer. Playwright Hinkley implies, Divine Providence was at that moment bringing Jane Austen into the world. She appears in person on the stage at the age of 23. No one in the audience would realize it, but according to her historians she had already written Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, was busy with Northanger Abbey. As impersonated by Actress Josephine Hutchinson, Jane was the flirtatious, giggling belle of Bath, busy discarding suitors right & left.

The Perfect Marriage (by Arthur Goodrich; William Caryl, producer). At a cottage in Auvergne, Bernard Catalan, an aged French playwright, and his wife are about to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. So notably harmonious has this marriage been that the President of the Republic and the Academy send felicitations.The old folks coo and hold hands. Whereupon appears Louise Morel (Fay Bainter), the playwright’s secretary in his earlier days. Off go the wigs and greasepainted wrinkles as Mile Morel begins to tell her story of how Mme Catalan once had a weak moment with an actor and M. Morel once betrayed his wife with his amanuensis. But when the fade-back has concluded and the young people have become old people again, the Catalans agree to apply the statute of limitations to their respective follies, continue to dodder their happy way along to the grave. Manhattan critics, as they shuffle up the aisle after a performance, have a terse way of signifying to each other their individual opinions of a play. An upward gesture of the head and a horizontal movement of the hand mean “It’s in.” If the hand swoops downward and the head wryly wobbles from side to side. “It’s terrible.” Following the curtain of The Perfect Marriage, hands swooped.

Singapore (by Robert Keith; John Henry Mears, producer) differs from all other mammy-palaver plays in that it includes in its cast a real live cobra.

Autumn Crocus (by C. L. Anthony: Lee Shubert, producer). Fanny saved up her money to take a little trip through the Tyrol in the autumn. She had never seen the mountains, but she felt sure she would love them. There was a photograph of them on the wall of the kindergarten in which she taught at Manchester. The moment he saw her the strapping young innkeeper of the Gasthaus Rote Hirsch, above Innsbruck, knew that he and Fanny would get along together. For the police register she confessed to being 29. The amiable innkeeper was amazed. The reason she looked so childlike, he decided, was because she was always with “de liddle vuns.” The reason he spoke English so well was because he once was a waiter in London. He was not a good waiter. His face “it vas not vooden enough.”

He took Fanny to see the relics in the little church. Finally he met her in the high meadow just as the sunrise was dancing in yellow on the tall white peaks. That was when they fell in love. Then he confessed he was married. She confessed she was 35. So Fanny goes back to Manchester.The innkeeper does not see her off on the bus, but he sends his little daughter with a basket of autumn crocuses.

Demure Actress Patricia Collinge shyly impersonates the kindergarten teacher. From the highly successful London production comes curly-headed Francis Ledererto act the innkeeper. He is a Czech. The friendly sound of South German English slips pleasantly from his lips. As she left the premiere, Cinemactress Constance Bennett was heard to remark: “Is he divine, is he divine or is he divine?”

Chrysalis (by Rose Albred Porter; Martin Beck, producer). When this play was first seen in the vernal surroundings of a stock company last summer it was widely regarded as an incipient Broadway success. In spite of the presence of Osgood Perkins. June Walker and chirrupy Margaret Sullavan in the cast, and direction by the Theatre Guild’s Theresa Helburn, that judgment may now be set down as premature.

Based on the premise that “Hit’s the rich what gets the pleasure, hit’s the poor what gets the blime,” Chrysalis moves rapidly through 16 cinematographic scenes of the high and low life of Manhattan. Lyda Cose and Don Ellis, a pair of rich and vicious flibbertigibbets, meet Eve Haron and Honey Rogers, a miniature crime wave, in a sordid resort. Lyda and Don are carrying on a puny little affair, are attracted to Eve and Honey because, although they may not be good citizens, they appear to love each other very dearly —so dearly, in fact, that when the law closes upon them, Honey kills a prison guard to get to Eve. Eve breaks out of a detention home to get to Honey. Lyda becomes embroiled in the escape, hears the police coming, watches Eve and Honey impale themselves on an iron fence five floors below, remains to face the news-photographers and notoriety, but is spared legal difficulties through her wealth.