NOTABLE SEASON ON NEW YORK STAGE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 119, 5 June 1937, Page 16

NOTABLE SEASON ON NEW YORK STAGE

' ' With two "Hamlets" — those of Leslie Howard and John Gielgud — ruuning simraltaneously, three Maxwell Anderson plays, one of which starred Katherine Cornell, who is to visit Australia and New Zealand next year, an adaptation of "Jane Eyre" by Helen Jerome (who earlier had adapted "Pride' and Prejudice"), three or four English plays which were withdrawn after short seasons, and Maurice Evans's production of "Eichard II.," the Broadway stage has had a notable season. "Jane Eyre," by the way, was the play in which Katherine Hepburn chose to return to the Broadway which nurtured her. , The Shakespeare revival spread beyond the regulation Hamlets and Eiehards j at the tail of the season Walter Huston — you last saw him in ' ' Dodsworth ' ' — tried ' ' Othello ' ' with himself in the role of the Moor and his wife, Nan Sunderland, as Desdemona. He "did" the provinces before taking the play to New York, and thonght, according to -a confesfsion* he made to the magazine Stage, he had done pretty well with a troublesome role. But after the critics , had expressed ' the opposite opinion he and the play withdrew, Mr. Huston in confused modesty and with a new assessment of the role. In many ways, perhaps, that was unfortunate, for Mr. Huston had spent months of retirement studying the role. He was consulted at one stage by a university club which also was producing "Othello," and he willingly gave his opinion for what it was worth. The University Othello more or less told him he didn't know what he was lalking about. It was one of Mr. Huston 's consolations after his own production had "flopped" in New York to receive a , letter from his rival Othello whieh, in effect, said: "I told you so." It all helped, Mr. Huston thought, towards the abatement of that cloying eelf-satisfaction that ds apt to develop in an actor after he has scored a satisfying success. "Dodsworth" had been Mr. Huston 's previous role, and the play had run for months. The Maxwell Anderson plays are always interesting. "Winterset," the film version of which was recently seen in both Hastings and Napier, was one of Mr. Anderson 'a contriimfcions tjo the Broadway stage last year, and his three plays this year were: "Wingless Victory," a story of racial intoleranca among the New England Puritans in 1800; "High Tor," a poetic fantasyj and ' ' The Masque of Kings, ' ' a play of t'hfe Wragio love affair between the Crown Prince Eudolph of Anistria and Marie Vetsera. Burgess Meredith and Peggy Ashcroft (who went over to New York from London with Sir Cedric Hardwieke) played in "High Tor," which has been described as a sort of "Midsummer Night 's Dream"* Walter Abel and Katherine Cornell in "Wingless Victory"; and Dudley Digges, Henry Hull and Margo (the Mirianne of "Winterset") in "The Masque of Kings." Mr. Hull had only a ehort

time before been playing as Edgar Allan Poe in a biographical play, and Mr. Digges returned to the legitimate stage after a long and honourable period in Hollywood. Maxwell Anderson, in his plays, has taken poetry — that "long-neglected tradition"— and fused it once more into the living drama. Here is an example of his work, from "Wingless Victory. ' ' Oparre, the dark-skinned princess who has xnarried Nathaniel, the New England Puritan sea captain, and been taken home to an atmosphere of intblerance, is upbraiddng her husband for siding against- her:— And though you swear it till the night come down in fire To vouch your word, yOu are not believed, and my blood, My dark blood, richer and prouder than your own, Will pour on' the ground before I stretch a hand To the race you drew from. We are less than you. You part the earth among you, burdening us With your labour and your lust. Among yourselves You think to breed and rule, breed up in men A race of kings to climb through the centuries On us who bear you. But your veins turn pale; Your pride is the pride of merchants; crawling your anger — Your very anger 's afraid of death, and crawls Lest you should die'. You will need us then, your race Of kings will breed water-thin in the after-time For lack of what we could lend you — fire at the heart, The word that goes with the hand, a ' dignity, Savage, imperial, choosing rather to die Than live unwanted. That is the rhythm of verse. Prose would not be as effcctivo, no niatter how the lines were spolcen.-