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O’Neill’s New Play Gives Man A Searching, Wearied Glance By Joy Carmody Drama Editor of Tho Star NEW YORK. The prestige which has been ebbing away from the theater during the 12 years of Playwright Eugene O’Neill's absence returned with the master’s “The Ice Man Cometh” at the Martin Beck Theater here last night. A playwright with something to say, and with the eloquence to say it, spoke for four thoughtful hours to the season’s most distinguished audience. Mankind is the theme of O'Neill’s first play in those dozen years, ana tne reelings wun wmci it fills him include bitter rage, pity and high, sardonic laughter. A glowing imagination, the particular gift which has made O'Neill Amer ict's foremost playwright, is visibly at work in “The Ice Man Cometh’, to shorten and vary its four long acts; to take the accent off its quan ■ tity and put it where it belongs, on its quality. In bringing theater back to the theater, O’Neill disdains the com mercial conventions. He writes as a poet with his eyes fixed on his soul, or if any one wants to say it with his back to the boxoffice. But with the largest advance sale In many years on Broadway—al ready far into January—there is no doubt “The Ice Man Cometh” al ready is a triumph that way, too. Sharing it with O’Neill are the Theater Guild, which produces the drama; Eddie Dowling, who directed it, and a cast delighted to the bot tom of its aggregate heart to dis cover that the art of playwriting is all the art of acting has been need ing. A dozen times, the running interval of the play is lengthened while the audience takes over to express its delight in acting such as is rarely seen. * * * * “Great” is no word to bandy about in a quick judgment of any play, not even “The Ice Man Cometh.” But it is safe to say it is the work of a great writer, a genius who dares to pass an opinion upon man and a word magician who never is at a loss for the musical or profane phrase to make his thought ruthlessly clear. There is a lot of the latter speech in the drama at the Martin Beck, but it cannot fail to ring as true to the ear of the listener as it did to O’Neill. The human beings O’Neill collects In “The Ice Man Cometh” are as degraded a lot as ever a modem playwright assembled. They are old friends of the playwright’s tortured youth, derelicts he knew- at Harry Hope's saloon on the West Side water front in 1912. They are life’s hopelessly beaten drunks, tarts and pimps. They find physical subsist ence in Hope’s rotgut whisky and the dessicated free lunch which makes his place a Raines Law hotel. They are sustained spiritually by their dreams, a fantastic, mad opr timism that makes tomorrow some how- worth living for. , rnese snauuy, simivcicu nuuuiu beset by their alcoholic demons are more than the dirty bums and frowsy prostitutes the naked eye re veals. -They are O'Neill's symbols of what mankind lets itself become. Those who make up what might be called his first team, it requires no skill to count, are composed of 12 blowsy disciples and a Mary Magda lene. They are waiting in Hope's backroom for the coming of their saviour, a traveling salesman named Hickey who will bring them the peace of a two-week binge. Hick comes, as he always does on Hope’s birthday, but its another kind of peace he brings with him this time. He, too, had a pipe-dream and Hope's was the place to let it roar, but he comes this time to re port’that it has been killed and that he has found a new and higher peace. Hickey is a great salesman and all the resistance has been dis solved by the alcohol his wretched associates have absorbed. One by one, with the notable exception of a philosophic Irishman who has learned to hate mankind, they be come pushovers for Hickey. rie oners uiem uiguuv,- hc uutio them souls, indeed, if they will give up their absurd dreams and the lusts of their flesh. They must $ace life as creatures with souls- if they would have it instead of the living death. Hickey is a persuasive one and as his arguments destroy their tomor row. Hope's alcoholic Utopia turns into a cage of angry animals. With their old drugged peace dis appearing. the group is seized by terror. Into the clearest of the cloudy minds in that sleazy room, that of the Irish philosopher, comes the thought that Hickey who used to be the life of those ^annual parties is the death's-headi atr-jfWs one. Hickey has become She icernan of his own once uproarious jest, and the iceman is death.y-?' How to get rid of him is the prob lem of the 12 disciples, the Magalene, and the lesser figures in the play. They manage it in a fashion that leads to an ending which gould be called happy in the simplest terms of the fundamentally sample plot. But certainly not happy i'h the play's allegorical significance which sums up man's 2,000-year opportunity under the influence of Christianity. The most amazing single Quality "THE ICE MAN COMETH." a play in foul acts by Eugene O’Neill, produced by the Theater Guild, directed by Eddie Dowling, with sets by Robert Edmond Joner. production under :he supervision of Lawrence Langner and Theresa Hel hurn. At the Martin Beck Theater, New York. . THE CAST. Pat McGloln A1 McGranary One-itiuc police lieutenant. Willie Oban E. O. Marshall A Harvafd Law School alumnus Joe Molt John Marriott One-time proprietor of a Negro gambling house Piet Wetjoen Frank Tweddell 1 ("The general"! one-time leader of a Boer commando. Cecil Lewis Nicholas Joy "The captain") one-time captain of British infantry. _ ... James Cameron Russell Collins ( Jimmy Tomorrow ”) one-time Boer War correspondent. , Hugo Kalmar Leo Chalzel One-time editor ol anarchist periodicals. ! Larry Slade Carl Benton Retd One-time anarchist. iRoeky Pioggi -Tom Pedi ! NSht bartender. 1 Dar. Parrot .Paul Crabtree j Pearl, Margie Cora, street walkers, i Ruth Gilbert, Jeanne eagney. Marcella Markham ' Chuck Morrllo Joe Marr Day bartender. i Theodore Hickman James Barton (Hickey) a hardware salesman | Moran _- - Michael Wyler ! Lieb . __ Charles Hart I of ‘‘The lee Man Cometh” is the laughter which O'Neill has found in the gloomy scene and theme of the play. There is no lack of mercy in his portrait of these ridiculous sym bols of humanity, but he forces you to laugh uproariously at them. No funnier scenes have been written in vears than one in which two of the girls in Hope's dive defend their honor as tarts against the accusa tion that what they really are are prostitutes. Or a second in which i Hope, the proprietor of the place, attempts to walk around his old Tammany ward after staying home 20 years since he buried his Bessie. As a piece of spe’.l-binding, "The Ice Man” owes its taut, r''ct»’ned - ~~~ * i Wejles lnes Hand At Film Suspense In ‘The Stranger’ "THE STRANGER,” an International Picture with Edward G. Robinson. Loretta Young, Orson Welles, produced by S. P. Eagle, directed by Orson Welles, screen play by Anthony Velller. original story, by Victor Trivas. At Keith's. The Cast. I Wilson Edward G Robinson Mary Longstreet Loretta Young' Prof. Charles Ranlan Orson Welles Judge Longstreet -Philip Merivale Soalt Longstreet -Richard Long r. Jeff Lawrence- Byron Ke th Mt Potter Billy House Meiniite ___ Konstanin Shayne Sara _:_.Martha Wentworth Mrs. Lawrence _-T.. Isabel o'Madlgan Orson Welles may or may not be the genius he has admitted being, but his new picture, “The Stranger,” which opened yesterday at Keith’s, is sounder evidence in support of his claim to fame than some other film chores he has done recently. Mr. Welles can, if he lets himself go, be quite an egregious ham as an actor and a pretentious fellow as a director, but in this instance he is neither of those things. He has chosen here to make a rather simple suspense film, in something very like the Alfred Hitchcock manner, and he has performed a leading role sensibly and directed the whole in a manner which proves he is the master of a number of effective Cinematic tricks. “The Stranger” tells the story o? the tracking down of a war criminal who has disappeared from the Nazi scene completely and the gradual breaking down of the disguise of his new life. Having successfully de stroyed all traces of his German Where and When ! « ) Current Theater Attractions and Time of Showing Stage. National — “Present Laughter”: 8:30 p.m. Screen. Capitol—“The Cockeyed Miracle": i 11 a.m., 1:45, 4:35, 7:20 and 10:05 p.m. Stage shows: 1:05, 3:50, 6:35 and 9:25 p.m. . Columbia—“Claudia and David”:! 11:50 a.m., 1:50, 3:50, 5:45, 7:45 and; 9:45 p.m. Earle—“Cloak and Dagger”: 10:30 a.m., 12:45, 3, 5:15, 7:30 and 9:50pm. Hippodrome — “Grand Illusion”: 2:05, 5:20 and 8:30 p.m. Keith's — “The Stranger”: 11:30 am., 1:35, 3:35, 5:40, 7:40 and 9:40 p.m. Little—“Mary Louise": 11 am., 1:05, 3:15, 5:20, 7:30 and 9:40 p.m. Metropolitan — “Her Sister's Se cret”: 11:30 a.m., 1:30, 3:35, 5:35, 7:40 and 9:45 p.m. Palace — “Three Little Girls in Blue”: 11:25 a.m., 1:30, 3:30, 5:35 7:40 and 9:45 p.m. Pix—“Shadows of Suspicion": 2, 4:05, 6:10. 8:15 and 10:20 p.m. Trans-Lux—News and shorts, con tinuous from 10:15 a.m New Deodorant gives sate-and-sure Protection Irani Perspiration Odor! oU .toys"1"1 ^k. „de fr°m ^ *.<££• ' pre1’e. m111,01 ktf"'1 ^ ^...is J G"e5 0J3* ^,,0 y°n *°- ,1 Leot'esn0 . p_SoIii^- €rsp’r0> tf-,leMere'Z»°»'T0 ^ -ie sijSerfK" tK>" 3 it’s Etiauet formula patented I J s„ Me other like it Vy RETURNS —Marking his re appearance on the Broadway scene after a 12-year absence, Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh” opened last night in New York. suspense to the clarity with which O’Neill has drawn members of his fascinating menagerie. They are as static a lot as any audience ever laid eyes on, but they achieve a startling effect of violent action by being each himself. The role of the drama is that of Hickey, played brilliantly with but one break by James Barton. The weight of the part of this strange Salvationist is best indicated in the circumstance that it requires a 16 minute speech in the fourth act, an amazing summation of the good and evil • conflict in the individual which O'Neill alone among modern playwrights could have written. Dudley Digges as Hope, proprie tor of the alcohol asylum, gives a wonderfully evocative performance in revealing the deep humanity of this derelict of a man whose wrath can be majestic and who combines the two into one of the great and touching comedy characters of con temporary theater. O’Neill's truly tragic man, the Irish philosopher who has come out on the far side of a passionate ideal ism with only a yearning for death, i See CARMODYTPage'B-ll.) past, he has surrounded himself with-respectability as a professor of history at a Connecticut academy, marrying the pretty daughter of a Supreme Court justice and keeping his dreams of a third world war to himself. He is discovered only when an old Nazi henchman, released from prison to be followed, traces him and thus marks him for a melodramatic end. Melodrama and all, Mr. Welles, as both actor and director, has made good suspense cinema out of this, achieving a high degree of dra matic inevitability in the relentless building, bit by bit, of the case, against Dr. Charles Rankin, the; Nazi in innocent disguise. Mr. Welles is a man who knows how to; use both camera and sound track, to heighten the mood of a scene, too, and while he occasionally goes so far that you are more conscious of his technique than of the story he is trying to tell, he has not let himself get out of hand this time. The players who surround Mr. Welles in "The Stranger” are able ones, especially Edward G. Robin; son, whose portrait of the sleuth who tracks down the Nazi is ample proof that he is gn actor- who will not let a young genliis steal a scene from him! Loretta Young, who probably will still be one of the prettiest girls in the movies 20 years from now, manages well enough as the villain’s faithful wife; the late Philip Merivale lends a note of dis tinction as her father, and Billy House adds a fine comic touch as a highly individual Connecticut store keeper. —H. M. AMUSEMENTS l^rFOREllFTTOERl IN TEARS. " —winchell j 4F\Qftabi£' m W*Heri-TutMU CmteerU 1 B JESSICA_ ■ DRAGONETTE B ■ FAMED SOPRANO B ■ FRI., OCT. 11, 8:30 P.M. ■ ■ USHER AUDITORIUM B ■ 21st & H Sts. N.W. ■ ■ ME. 5867—ME. 5868 ■ " SMrts$l*t8.$l<S8i8M8iM. ■ $3.60 Inel. tax '* ■ Auditorium Box Office B ■ 21st I. H St*. H.W., 9:30 P.M. B \ I I ■ ■■■■■■■ " t 1 ‘Cloak and Dagger,’ Earle’s New Film, An Exciting One By Harry MacArthur "CLOAK AND DAGGER," a United States Picture for Warner Bros, release, with Gaay Cooper, produced by Milton Sperling, directed by Fritz Lang, screen play by Albert Maltz and Ring Lardner, Jr., original story by Boris Ingster and John Larkin bared on a book b^ Corey Ford and Alastalr MacBain. At the Earle. THE CAST. Prof. Alvah Jesper----Gary Cooper Gina __ _Lilli Palmer. Pir.kie_ Robert Alda Polda_. Vladimir Sokoloff Trenk _J. Edward Bromberg Ann Dawson_Marjorie Hoshelle The German_V-Ludwlg Stossel Katerin Lodor_Helene Thimlg Marsoll _ Dan Seymour Luigi Marc Lawrence Col. Walsh _James Flavin The Englishman- Pat O Moore Erich_ Charles Marsh “Cloak and Dagger,” which opened last night at the Earle, probably is as aptly named as any motion pic ture ever was. This is rare, old “cloak and dagger” stuff, full of mayhem and excitement, espionage and counterespionage and with a pretty girl spy for the hero to^learn to love. It was inspired by the war time adventures of our Office of Strategic Services, but it is doubt ful If even that “cloak and dagger” branch of the armed forces ever leaned quite so far toward E. Phil lips Qppenheim as the photoplay named after its nickname does. There is a slight degree of im plausibility Injected when the film ships a scientist w'ith no espionage training off to Switzerland to carry on a tricky bit of work and the de gree becomes even more than slight when the young scientist, a type so American as Gary Cooper, pops off to Italy, without even being able to speak the language, to continue his chore. Still, a number of the actual cases in the OSS files might AMUSEMENTS r NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF 100 PLAYERS Hons Kindler, Conductor • ALL SUBSCRIPTION SERIES 10 Wedneedaye at 8:30 p.m. No sinrle tickets sold to individual Wednesday concerts. Season-ticket sale closes opening nicht. Oct. 16. • ^ Opening Concert Oct. 16 MYRA HESS' | Beethoven Concerto No. * | OTHER SOLOISTS: Swarthout, Kreisler, Rubmsteiif, Firkusny, Kirsten, Spivokovsky, Enesco and Rudolph Serkin All Conctrlt is Conttitution Hail Ticket.: *1.80. *p, *12. *11. *21. *21 (txx Incl.). Symphony Bo. Office. Kitts 1330 G St. N.W. ^ WA. 1332. y I^RKO KEITH’S I v opp. U. S. Treasury sn 15th St. ■ OFEK 10:45 KM. • SON. 12 BOM H imtmtiOMt nctwn ■ fk fef1 I WTTM I EDWARD G. ROBINSON I LORETTA YOUNG I ORSON WELLES H kiitiCM ihmum wo u» ncruMS ■ Directed ky I ORSON WELLES m NEXT ■ ABBOTT A CQSTELLO IN ■ -THITIU^MHEI^IVEr U—r Aueitorius. George Waoklaftaa University l LAST TIME TONIGHT f AT 8:3§ P. M. Ballet For Ameriea ★ ROSAY k LEE k BBLLNEI ★ QRANTZEVA ★ RAZOUMOYA ★ BARNES * PETROFF ★ O'BRIEN k SHABELEYSKI ★ LYONS ' ★ LAZOWSKI Choreaarapht MASSINE—CATON—BOMAMOP*—PAOB 8HABEI.EVSK1— I.AZOW8K1 jConetrt Duo~Pianitts SADLOW8K1— BEBI.1N I Priece. *3.8*. *3. *3.4*. *1.80 (tax IwL) 1 Bex Office 21.t u* ■ Ste. K.» rsewe ME. 58*7. Iwl Site New Q«U« Bo coot: ADOE.D ATTRACTION ^VIRGINIA KINNj be even more implausible in their own manner, so it perhaps will be best just to let this matter pass. Let it be said that “Cloak and Dag ger" has its sharp, melodramatic moments high with excitement and its sequences so taut with suspense that the more susceptible types will be suffering from shattered nerves before the thing is done. “Cloak and Dagger" is the story of Prof. Alvah Jesper (played by Cooper), who is relieved of his Man hattan Project work to be sent to Switzerland by the OSS to talk to a female wizard in atomic fission who has just fled Germany. The Nazis, naturally, are ready to go to any lengths to prevent this meet ing, ultimately killing the woman to do so. Whereupon Prof. Jesper decides the only thing for him to do is go to Italy to see another man who knows about atoms and who, before the war, has voiced his views on the necessity for science to retain its freedom. This turns out, in spite of everything hectic that happens, to be the best idea Mr. Cooper’s professor ever had, for it is in the Italian underground that he meets Gina and learns of love under difficulties. Qina is played by Lilli Palmer, who may very easily be the most welcome feminine personality the AMUSEMENTS * '♦ 4 WALTERS-TLTHILL CONCERTS 4 ILEAH EFFENBACH! | Noted Pianitt { $ AT USNER AUDITORIUM \ t FRI., OCT. 18 t ♦ SeoH $1.20, $1.80, ♦ ♦ $2.40, $3.00 ♦ ♦ Box Office 21st & H St. N.W. ♦ 4 SEATS NOW ON SALE $ J Box Office Open 10 A.M. to 9 P.M. j •**eeeeeeee«ee«eeeee4444 British have sent us since Vivien Leigh. She bears a slight resem blance to Lucille Ball and she can act, too. That’s not bad. “Cloak and Dagger” lost to some other pictures in, the race to get the first story of OSS on the screen, but that should not lessen its ex citement. Director Fritz Lang, his scriptwriters and his players have seen to it that this film does not; need the outside stimulus of cur-; rent headlines to heighten its dra- j matic effect. The Earle also is showing “The Last Bomb,” a Warner Bros. Tech- j nicolor short, produced with the co amusements_ FiiATldN«Svjis% Mm C WIIomm prmwii CLIFTON WEBB m MOfl COWAtO'S Utkl ComtJy PMSMTjMGHKtl 9 Ivtlyn Dtfit MmHm VAKDCN DALTON UNO IN SHtin§ by DmoW O—rioftt ! <H|W by Mt WILSON _POP. MAT. SATURDAY 7 Diys B#f$ Snu. Night ud 8»tBrdn mmm maim mmmm *Student Prince Cut of Selected Artists THE FAMOUS SINGING MALE CHORUS —SEAT SALE NOW— fmmm, t - &&- mr j Can,motion Hall.Son.Aft.,Ott.20 4 a,B. ® g; ASTIR % I I ! 1; Calibrated Pollvh PUnlat — Ib Btrital : .. $1.20, $1.8$. $2.4$, $3. $3.60 mt. Ui t I * Mri.Ooriet i, 1108 G <C»m»beir*)NA.71Sl m % --— - ■ ■ ■—.- ■ —..— ■ 1 r M OUR UORRMS FREI PARKIN! LOT IIRECUY ^ KROW m STRUT FROM THE MTRfOOO TMRTRt II-1 ALL LAUCH SHOW? *«,. BJ&ZrHE GOLD rushV 7^ -yo 4 (/ S — ' 'sues BUNNY'- y/t/tEE STOOCES V«v 'DONALD DUCK' 'L/rtLU LULU” „ ,'>*uro" ^P£y*rf/CN7YHOUSE' -- AUN FOR TNK N/NOLE FAMILY wrF^lIrwwnr^YTr^r'^F^k 1 OPEN b'PM ^WTHtl1 >VL K™*01 *•<• »» MICW8M *VL| 7fa SAeu/ PJ*ce operation of the Air Forces, which shows excitingly and comprehen sively all that went into those bomb ings of Japan. . _ _____ AMUSEMENTS_ HEARS DOOM Unforgetable Scenes WOBLP SERIES BASEBALL WMAL—Hourly Ntwca* ^TWOHttNCy>IAlOGJ{MJITS!| Kan , \jj£ZjAFjjjjkZfd STARTSpAMES MASON-.. SAT. I Margaret Lockwood TODAY AT 10:30 A.M.. m adventure without parallel? S flOK PROOUCEO BY m Wk 1 , UL Jti ONITEO STATES PICTURES * * tor WARNER BROS. 1 <w’""vX%-'*^J0BERI ALDA £g\ 1 WORLD PREMIERE “LAST BOMB" I Produced in Technicolor by Warner Bros. in Cooperation with tne Army Air Forces f ALSO NOW SHOWING AT AMBASSADOR "HER SISTER' SECRET NANCY COLEMAN * MARGARET LINDSAY, PHILIP REED FELIX BRESSART ? Also On Screen • “NO HELP WANTED" • Story ot our physically handicapped G.I.’s - ENRIC MADRIGUERA A ORCHESTRA “RORIN HOOD MAKES GOOD” CARTOON Warner Bros. » I