Evening star. [volume], October 10, 1946, Page B-10, Image 35

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
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!
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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_
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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—
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Can,motion Hall.Son.Aft.,Ott.20 4 a,B. ®
g; ASTIR %
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V«v 'DONALD DUCK' 'L/rtLU LULU” „
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-- 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