The Theatre: New Plays in Manhattan: Feb. 10, 1936

Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 (Brothers Shubert, Producers) falls comfortably into the mold of its 24 predecessors. None of its comedy is funny enough to make anyone wear himself out laughing. On the other hand, Vincente Minnelli’s diverting surrealist decor, the arts of a half-dozen stars and the blandishments of 48 show girls are likely to keep most spectators from going to sleep. Only if he expects Josephine Baker to be something out of the ordinary will a ticket holder be actually disappointed by this year’s Follies.

Josephine Baker is a St. Louis wash woman’s daughter who stepped out of a Negro burlesque show into a life of adulation and luxury in Paris during the booming 1920’s. In sex appeal to jaded Europeans of the jazz-loving type, a Negro wench always has a head start. The particular tawny tint of tall and stringy Josephine Baker’s bare skin stirred French pulses. But to Manhattan theatre-goers last week she was just a slightly buck-toothed young Negro woman whose fig ure might be matched in any night club show, whose dancing & singing could be topped practically anywhere outside France.

With Fannie Brice, on the other hand, there is practically never cause for com plaint. Her tidbit in this show is her impersonation of a solemn Jewish dancer interpreting “Rewolt” and “de Messes.” Plump, ingratiating Comedian Bob Hope (Roberta) is given an amusing song to sing hopelessly to comely Eve Arden (Parade). Vernon Duke wrote the tune; Ira Gershwin the lyric:

The Himalaya Mountains I climb. I’m written up in FORTUNE and TIME. . . . I’m asked to every State ball, But I’m just behind the eight-ball with you. Call It a Day (by Dodie Smith; Theatre Guild, producer) combines all the good things from a generation of British domestic comedies, beautifully packaged in a tip-top production by the Theatre Guild. What it lacks in novelty, it more than makes up in size (nine scenes) and wholesomeness. From the innocent affair between the Hilton’s dog and the neighbor’s bitch to the momentary missteps of Dorothy and Roger Hilton themselves, Call It a Day is never in any real danger of losing its virtue.

A sudden burst of unseasonably fine London weather is responsible for setting the Hiltons, their two daughters, son, maid and terrier on a frolic for 16 lively hours. Forsythia and iris are blooming, and to love all hearts turn lightly save that of the Hilton’s cleaning woman who ominously declares: “The first spring day Is in the devil’s pay”

The uncontrollable passion of young Ann (Jeanne Dante) is for nothing more dangerous than the poems and paintings of the late Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Daughter Catherine (Florence Williams) is more painfully enmeshed in a hopeless crush on a scrupulously disinterested portrait painter (Glenn Anders). Callow Martin, one of those slightly ratty British youths with a wild craving for motor cars, just misses a homosexual imbroglio by falling for the girl next door and her roadster. Even Mrs. Hilton (Gladys Cooper), sensible matron that she is, entertains a fleeting fancy for a returned rubber planter. And, most unexpectedly of all, Roger Hilton (Philip Merivale), a financier impeccable of manner and noble of mien, has a weak moment with a flashy actress. By midnight, however, the devil has been safely sent packing.

Compassionate author of Autumn Crocus, Dodie Smith has filled her play with the bright splash of gentle laughter. Roger Hilton is amusingly lugubrious and Dorothy Hilton is pleasantly charming. But the part in Call It a Day most richly written and ripely played is that of young Daughter Ann. For instance, as Ann is comforting her sobbing sister after the painter has failed to keep a tryst, the older Hilton daughter hesitates to reveal the full extent of her yearning.

“It might shock you,” Catherine explains.

Ann’s reply: “You can’t shock a person whose favorite king is Charles II!”

In the first 72 hours following the premiere of Call It a Day, Jeanne Dante, 13, received three offers from Hollywood. The cinema’s scouts were on the freight, for Jeanne’s artlessness pleasurably impressed all who saw her last year in Birthday (TIME, Jan. 7, 1935). She had a longer role than the one she now has in Call It a Day. It required her to memorize 51 “sides” (speeches) which ran into some 15,000 words. But Jeanne reads a part through four or five times, has it by heart. Jeanne’s family are not professionals, but she takes readily to stage life, likes the applause, the late hours. Lady Precious Stream (translated by S. I. Hsiung; Morris Gest, producer). Author Hsiung, professor, actor, playwright and journalist, functions as a sort of literary switchboard connecting East and West. His first stage appearance was at a Chinese Y. M. C. A. at the age of 15. At 18 he translated Franklin’s Autobiography into Chinese. Since then Dr. Hsiung has brought such occidental treasures as William Shakespeare and James M. Barrie to the Orient. In return, he now compensates the West with an English version of a Chinese fairy tale called Lady Precious Stream.

According to Dr. Hsiung, Lady Precious Stream is a play of some antiquity. Chinese actors refer to the whole legend as “The Eight Acts about the Wang Family.” Fragments of the third and fourth acts, explains Dr. Hsiung, are often presented on the Chinese stage when the bill wants a touch of humor. Two scenes of the second act, on the other hand, are used “for a program which we did not wish to become too hilarious.” Occidentals are likely to find that Lady Precious Stream is, in its own way, fairly hilarious all the way through. “Let it be clearly understood,” begins the Honorable Reader, chic Yuen Tsung (“Maimie”) Sze, daughter of Sao-ke Alfred Sze, Chinese Ambassador to the U. S. (TIME, Feb. 3),”that this unfurnished stage represents the scene of the picturesque garden of the Prime Minister, Wang Yun.” When he appears, Wang promptly makes it known that he has two sons-in-law, Wei, the Tiger General and Su, the Dragon General, and three daughters, Golden Stream, Silver Stream and the maidenly Precious Stream (Helen Chandler). The last gives him much trouble because, instead of picking out a prince for a husband, her choice lights on Hsieh (Bramwell Fletcher), her family’s handsome and capable gardener. The lovers are banished from Wang’s house, whereupon the narrative is briefly clouded by the raven wing of grief. Hsieh is called off to the wars in the Western Regions and, like a Chinese Penelope, Precious Stream puts in the next 18 years waiting in a cave for him to return. When he does, the Wang family is made to eat humble pie and husband & wife live happily ever after. As with The Yellow Jacket a generation ago and the Mei Lan-fang repertory in 1930, Lady Precious Stream is supposed to charm U. S. spectators by presenting the Chinese theatre in all its childish ingenuousness. The characters tap their foreheads to indicate thought, hide behind chairs to avoid each other and. when required to faint, are lowered easily to the floor by ubiquitous property men. First nighters found all this to their liking, thought dainty, wide-eyed Helen Chandler looked lovely as a sprig of almond blossoms, considered her real-life husband Ac tor Fletcher adequately droll, rated Lady Precious Stream as unimportantly amusing as a visit to a nursery.