COSY THEATRE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 40, 10 November 1937, Page 8

COSY THEATRE

••IHE G-EEEN PASTtFP.ES.":"The Green Pastures," the film version of . Marc Connolly's famous ' play which has aroused so much cou- . troversy both nere and in England, will open its Hastings season at the Cosy Theatre to-night. "The Green Pastures" is a simple tale of simple people; it is, in dramatic : form, a ncgro conception of incidents described in the. Old Testament. The filni's opening scenes take place in a negro Sunday School in the Old South. There the pastor, a kindly man, describes for his ward the Old Testament stories. From there you are transported on the wings of the simple negro 's imagination to the world of the Old Testament — a .bizarre world in whieh the Babylonian revels are depicted as the equivalent of a "hot" night in a Harlem , cabaret; in which Pharaoh's soldicrs appear in an array of uniforms , more beiltting modern admirals and fielci-marshals, and heaven seems to be an everlasting barbecue feast. s ' ....... As a stage play, this creation of Marc Connelly's ran for more than ilve years. It was presented in 203 cities and towns, and as a pieture will probably reach more than one hundred times that many theatres. ' ' The Green Pastures " is a stirring pieture baged on Connelly 's Pulitzer Prize play, ivlxich was suggosted by Roark Bradford 's novel. Connelly also co-direct.ed the pieture with William Keighley and wrote the -screen play in collaboration with Sheridan . Gibney. Spirituals are sung by the Hall Johhsori choir. : * There are hundreds in the caet, including Rex lngram and Oscar Polk.