The Theatre: Revival in Hollywood: Sep. 9, 1940

Although Hollywood is almost as fond of culture as of aquatics, it has seldom worked up any real enthusiasm for the legitimate drama. Few shows have ever played profitably in the town, and the successful ones usually included in their casts such stars as Katharine Cornell and Helen Hayes, who could attract an audience in the Mojave Desert. When Hollywood stars return to the boards for a lark, they do so not in Hollywood but on Broadway and in the better-class barns of the straw-hat circuit.

Recently a group of cinema luminaries burst forth in Noel Coward’s nine-play cycle Tonight at 8:30 right in Los Angeles’ El Capitan Theatre. Suddenly the stage became as popular in Hollywood as pinko politics used to be. Three weeks ago, amid a bright glare of flash bulbs, the Coward cycle reached its climax, with Noel himself in the audience. Bedazzling was the throng that welcomed him. Even the reclusive Garbo was there, escorted by her dietitian Dr. Gayelord Hauser, who puts as much faith in vegetable juice as Popeye puts in spinach.

Last week the Coward series began its second hitch at El Capitan, with Rosalind Russell and Herbert Marshall in Still Life, Claire Trevor in Family Album. Judith Anderson in Hands Across the Sea. Binnie Barnes in Red Peppers. Not so good were Constance Bennett and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in We Were Dancing. After watching his daughter go through her paces, Richard Bennett testily observed: “Connie was born an amateur, she always has been an amateur, and still is an amateur.” Another amateur, Elsa Maxwell, giggled through Ways and Means, displaying her broad beam in a series of startling stoops.

Backer of Hollywood’s revival of Tonight at 8:30 is the Theatre Guild of Southern California. Founded by onetime Hollywood Director Dudley Murphy and Cinemactor Alan Mowbray, the Guild was set up as a permanent theatrical company, proposed to present Hollywood talent in plays both old & new. A snarl in Guild plans occurred last week when Co-Founder Murphy split with Partner Mowbray, prepared to start a group of his own. Also disturbing to the Guild was a request from the Theatre Guild in Manhattan that the California outfit change its name to prevent confusion.

Despite its troubles the Guild grossed a fat $20,000 weekly with Tonight at 8:30, and Actor Mowbray, who intends to rename his organization The Players Theatre when the Coward series is over, was making long plans for the future. The Guild’s present popularity is stimulated by the fact that all its profits are now donated to the British War Relief Association, whose Southern California division Alan Mowbray heads. Actors in Tonight at 8:30 contribute their services free.