The Theater: New Playlets in Manhattan, Aug. 16, 1943

The Army Play by Play (produced by John Golden and the Second Service Command). Last fall Producer John Golden (Lightnin’, Claudia) announced a one-act play contest for soldiers. Last June he offered the top five of 114 entries to a special audience that included Eleanor Roosevelt, Mayor LaGuardia, the Duke & Duchess of Windsor, a ton of Army & Navy brass hats. The audience’s enthusiasm aroused the public’s envy, and last week Producer Golden offered The Army Play by Play on Broadway for a short run.

Served up with showmanship, it made a jolly evening. In the orchestra pit a lusty Army band fiddled and blew. Between playlets, enlisted men did smart tap dances, takeoffs, tricks. The playlets themselves varied in tone and quality : the two lightest were the two best. Pfc. John B. O’Dea’s Where E’er We Go was a lively stenographic report of talk in barracks, with some good cracks tossed in by the stenographer. Corporal Irving G. Neiman’s Button Your Lip was a comic free-for-all about dazed rookies, daffy rumors and the presence in camp of a glamorous star. At each performance a different star — Gertrude Lawrence, Ilona Massey, Carole Landis, Gypsy Rose Lee — turned up in person for the tag line.