The Theater: New Revue in Manhattan, Sep. 19, 1955

THE THEATER New Revue in Manhattan Catch a Star! (music by an and Phil Chang; lyrics by Paul Webster and Ray Golden; sketches by Dannyand Neil Simon) got the new Broadway season off to a respectable but unexciting start. Perhaps half its numbers have at least their pleasant moments— a far from disgraceful average for revues, but a dubious recommendation for audiences.

The best of the good things— a round song called The Story of Alice—is done with the high-styled nonsensicality of a good British revue number. There is some of the same appeal in a song-and-dance fandango called Gruntled: the gimmick of the lyrics (ept, kempt, scrutable) is pretty old hat, but the general air and the wacky ballroom dancing are gay Among the sketches, there is a funny take-off of the current movie Marty and a fairly funny take-off of matinee ladies Two or three other skits, on such themes as Tennessee Williams and marriage bureaus that sell husbands as though they were haberdashery, get men on base but rail to score.

Barring Veteran Comic David Burns the cast is young, night-spotty, and largely new to Broadway, Pat Carroll, Jack Wakefield, Helen Halpin and Elaine Dunn should all have Broadway futures, but at the moment they can only enhance good material; they cannot save bad. What with undistinguished numbers and indistinguishable songs, a long-winded ballad about a killer and a dreadful adaptation of O Henry’s Gift of the Magi, Catch a Mar! only intermittently catches the sun.