Evening star. [volume], June 30, 1948, Page A-16, Image 16

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

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
'Philadelphia Story’ Is Told,
But Not Fully, at the Olney
By Jay Carmody
Philip Barry, who made his own name in the theater, and Diana
Barrymore, who inherited hers, team up at the Olney Theater this
week in the former's "The Philadelphia Story.” Considering that Barry
is supposed to have tailored the drama to the measurements of Kath
arine Hepburn, quite another girl, the result is reasonably satisfying.
"The Philadelphia Story” certainly lacks its original glitter, but it
is more amusing, in its sardonic
way, than those who saw the first
team play it intelligently might ex
pect. On the whole, it will do as
a summer theater version of a
witty something you may have
missed in its first phase and in the
inevitable movie which came later
—and rather well.
It always is most unlikely that
any successor in a role such as that
of the Barry play’s heroine will
prove she was the actress for whom
the script might have been written
The rule holds this week at the
Olney. Miss Hepburn's neurotic
Philadelphia patrician is more of a
girl to remember than Miss Barry -
more’s ever will be. And this is
not because the former was sur
rounded by more expensive play
mates who had profited by longer
rehearsal. It is rather that she
sought and found more in petulant
Tracy Lord, the Main Line aristo
crat whose case history the play
represents.
To the naked eye only one mem
ber of the Olney resident company
participates in this week's produc
tion. Happily the one chosen is
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Mary MacArthur, who, in the role
of the brat sister, makes threats
: of stealing the play. Miss Mac
| Arthur, who heretofore has had
overwhelming competition, starting
with her famous mother, is on her
.spirited own this week. Playwright
Barry can be proud of her collabo
ration with him in “The Philadel
phia Story.''
* * * *
The Olney's latest offering rep
resents Author Barry up to one of
his oldest and most highly polished
tricks, namely, lecturing wittily on
the neurosis of the social aristoc
racy. His mood is a compound of
sympathy and disdain, a sort of
frank discussion of the subject by
a man who could argue that the
whole thing hurts him more than
his victims. This is true, also, of
the play's subordinate observations
on tycoon Journalism as practiced
by chain publishers who can af
ford slick paper and a dramatic
extreme of arrogance.
The central figure in Barry’s il
lustrated lecture is the Tracy Lord,
| played this time by Miss Barry
' more.
She is a spirited girl, this Tracy,
but her intellectual and physical
energies lead only to making life
more of a iporal mess. When the
i play opens, she has discarded one
husband, a member of her own ex
clusive tribe, and is about to marry
another whose origins are about as
antithetical as they could get. The
| new man is self-made, up from the
coal pits to the top of the anthra
cite heap.
Tracy patently is the experimental
type and she is not able to stop with
this pair. The. third turns up in
the guise of a sophisticated bitter
staff writer on a magazine called
Destiny, a richly rewarded slave of
a publisher who dresses scandal
journalism in a new vocabulary and
fools the, say daylights, out of
everybody.
This chap also has a lot to stir
the fancy of hysterically searching
Tracy. He completes a team which
gives the girl quite a battle before
she makes the choice that leaves
every one living happily ever after.
w w w w
This quartet of central figures Is
< surrounded by an assortment of
aristocratic relatives and bourgeois
intruders who were much better un
derstood and appreciated by Mr.
I Barry than by Miss Barrymore and
her . company. They read his lines
with vigor and wrestle energetically
i with his piquant situations, but they
'never seem to be telling more than
a small part ol the Philadelphia
i story.
Miss Barrymore is not made, as
was Miss Hepburn, with that lean
patrician look the playwright seems
! to have noted in Main Line women
of this generation. Nor does she
suggest that her Tracy is a girl
with a softness deep inside which
explains her moral confusion. Miss
Barrymore seems rather a heroine
capable of blasting her way out of
any situation, not excluding those
of "The Philadelphia Story.”
In Robert Wilcox, also, the Olney
comes up with less of a man than
those who played Mike Connor, the
embittered writer, in previous ver
sions of the play. There was more
of human sympathy and under
standing in the Mike previously dis
played as Barry's hero.
Dean Havens sketches a reason
able facsimile of the first husband,
however, and the same may be said
for Grant Gordon as the former
miner who might have brought new
blood to the Lord line.
Granting her the pet role of the
play as the brat sister, little Miss
MacArthur Is the one you are cer
tain to find most pleasing at the
Olney this week. Certainly she is
closest of the whole group to the
spirit of what is remembered of the
original production of “The Phila
delphia Story.”
S. Syrjala has come up with a
series of wealthy family living rooms
and verandas which shows that
the summer theater can be creative
even if it is not rich.
IN THE COUNTRY— Diana
Barrym&e of the famed thea
ter clan plays the leading role
in “The Philadelphia Story,"
this week’s attraction- at the
Olney Theater.
Harry Would Carry
Coals to Newcastle
By the Associated Press
HOLLYWOOD.
Harry Albiez is the kind of guy
who takes kindling with him into
the forest. He has learned never to
take a chance.
Albiez, property man at Metro
Goldwyn-Mayer studios, once went
to Samoa on a movie location. He
depended on the local supply of tapa
cloth to costume the cast, since tapa
comes from the South Seas. But the
natives couldn’t furnish enough.
Albiez had to send all the way back
to Hollywood for more.
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Hollywood:
Now That She’s
Gone Warners
Want Arlene
By Sheiloh Graham
Arlene Dahl is going back to War- j
ners to do the life story of Robert;
Burns with Dennis .Morgan. And
that’s almost funny. Because the
pretty redhead with the big movie
future starred with Morgan at War
ners in .“My Wild Irish Rose,” but
they let her go. Then Metro
grabbed her and now Warners say
it isn’t fair; .they saw her first. I
hear from Warners that they now
are working out a deal with Metro
to have Arlene for one big Techni
color picture a year.
Spencer Tracy is set for the top
role in "Vespers in Vienna,” with
Peter Lawford and Arlene Dahl
(What, again!) testing for the
young couple. They are still look
ing for some one to play the impor
tant nun’s role.
Lana Turner is a much maligned
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Ms Way - EDW. 6. ROBINSON - BURT UHCttlER “ALL MY SDNS”
4
girl—according to Don Loper at the
Cobina Wright, sr., cocktail party
for Artist Mariano Soyer. “She is
wearing my dresses only,” says Don.
referring to Lana's honeymoon
wardrobe, “and none of them has
an outrageous decollete”—as re
ported by the French press.
The Earl of Warwick at the same
affair tells me that the chief change
be has noticed in Hollywood since
be was here last, nine years ago, “is
the size. I hardly recognized the
place, it's so big!”
Glenn Ford and his Eleanor Pow- j
*11 Stop to tell me that Glenn will
se made an Indian chief when they
go to Lake Seeley, Mont., this week.
Eleanor denies that she has prom
Mlcker keener In
"KILLER MeCOY"
Pat O'Brien in
"MAN AUVE ”
Oven A; start* »:M.
Adults. Me
Children Free! I
lsed to dance for the Indians. That
would be reversing things too much.
* * * *
’Robert Cummings and his Mary
went to Honolulu on Monday.
While there Bob will shoot back
ground shots for his Hedy Lamarr
picture, “Let’s Have a Little.”
Audie Murphy, who is going to
Prance for a Bastile Day celebra
tion, is having some trouble getting
his passport. The courthouse where
his birth had been registered burned
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JANET BLAIR
Warner Bros. Cool F NEAR 10th |
METROPOLITAN |
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DeflM * DAy
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last Times Today- ^/} /J Ul F
Paulette Goddard c-=^| N ,,.. ......., L
"HAZARD" <?\JUVV/ And AMBASSADOR-_
Myroa toy • Fredric March
Dana Andrews • Teresa Wright
Viriginia Mayo • Hoagy Carmichael
Cathy O'Donnell and Harold Russell
Dtndbb Stn—rUfb
. William Wyler Robert E. Sherwood
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MORS OMR S:30 *.M
I down a long time ago, with all the
! records therein destroyed. So,
“officially," Audie hasn't been born.
With his war record, I don't think
he should be made to prove that
obvious point!
Greta Garbo was taken to the
dinner party of Sir Charles Mendl’s
by the columnist and popular man
about-town, Harry Crocker. And it’s
la new Garbo these days and m*
nings—she's quite a gay girl.
Gene Tierney at the same party,
escorted by Otto Preminger. Gene
has still another two weeks of work
in “That Wonderful Urge” before
<See HOLLYWOOD, Page A-H.l
AMUSEMENTS
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!' . Oneoftite all-time ,
film pieald zulu/mef
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OLIVIER FONTAINE;
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"REBECCA" at 10:30, 12:45, 3:00, 5:15, 7:30, 9:50
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surrounded
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\ „^A..^,rO.> 1 OnfHiM Story ky CHARLES MARTIN •»< HANS WILHELM
a \ i*l,.!£'|»IW \ DlrKltd%i _ Pi#d«e»d»Y
V 1 \ RICHARD THORPE • JOE PASTERNAK
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EVALYN TYNERS m
First Lady of tho Piano i
DON CUMMING““»»“
FRANKLIN & MOORE
' 1948's Outstanding Singing Duo
paul sypell „
Eads T MARGARET O'BRIEN - GEORGE MURPHY "BIG CITY"
Taday On Stage . . . SYLVIA FROOS . . . others
[may • TYRONE POWER "BLOOD AND SAND"
V\
>•