The Theater: Banner Week

It took vaudeville and burlesque to give Broadway, for the first time since December, two successful openings in the same week:

Laugh, Town, Laugh is a likable vaudeville, with Master of Ceremonies Ed Wynn providing the twists, and performers of all nations supplying the turns. Arrayed in his usual unusual costumes and equipped with a few new inventions, including a collection box that comments on the offerings, the Perfect Fool guides the show insanely from act to act. Wynn is not at his funniest in Laugh, Town, Laugh, but he is funny enough; and his embarrassed giggles help to redeem his most embarrassing gags.

Michael Todd’s Star and Garter is

burlesque with a red carpet down. Recently locked out of Manhattan’s fourbit theaters, the bad girl of show business has been set up, with diamonds in her hair, at the aristocratic Music Box. The chorus is beautiful and abundant; the costumes are glamorous and scanty. Bouncing Bobby Clark is there for laughs, and Burlesqueen Gypsy Rose Lee is there for lure. Tropical Georgia Sothern is there for the really intense customers, and fat, shameless Carrie Finnell for the really incorrigible ones. Star and Garter is a riot of off-color.