SHABBY THEATRES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 August 1939, Page 4

SHABBY THEATRES

NO LUXURY LN NEW YORK. Even though “The play’s the thing” in New York, the theatres—except for the magnificent new Music Hall, which gives motion pictures as well as an elaborate stage show—do not live up to the luxury suggested by American films. Most of the theatres are in the “Forties"—between 41st and 49th Streets, off Broadway—and they have, no glittering exteriors, no sweeping, gilded staircases, no spacious foyers. Sometimes there is only about the width of the pavement between the pavement itself and the back of the stalls, and the interior decorations is something that has not been touched for years. After the shows are over you come out into narrow streets, to the perfume of gardenias and the suffocating reek of gasoline, and walk toward the bright lights of Broadway, where movement is slow because of the density of the crowd and eyesight is readjusted in the glare of millions of electric lights and neon signs swirling and dancing in strange coloured patterns. Yet, for all the dinginess, to have their names in lights above these theatres is the ambition of every actor and actress; it is the symbol of their triumph in a world which is no less make-believe under the unnatural glow

of Broadway than it is behind the footlights of the playhouses. The theatres offer varied fare—there arc drama and comedy and music. The Summer Theatres in the country districts outside New York provide theatrical fare for those who are too far from Broadway to get it in the a city, and scores of good plays are presented during the season. The Ridgeway Theatre, White Plains, more than an hour’s car drive from New York through the lovely countryside in the twilight, is like a huge old country house set in beautiful park lands. The theatre is almost hidden among the trees, and informality is fostered by serving supper on. the terrace and in the garden during the intermission.