Two Lindberghs

Smart Parisian children are accustomed to behold at the Chatelet Theatre entrancing "fairy spectacles" called feeriques. Last week, however, this famed theatre-for-tiny-tots was taken over by Actor-Manager Sacha Guitry, who is usually to be found co-starring with his wife, Mile. Yvonne Printemps, in Paris' latest and most urbanely naughty hit. To the Chatelet tripped and strode, last week, Tout Paris to applaud what one critic called "the boyish dignity and so entrancing innocence de notre cher Lindbergh!"

Generously the great Actor-Manager Sacha Guitry provided for his choosey feminine patrons two Lindberghs--Voila! Also he entitled his piece Charles Lindbergh--A Heroic Melodrama. Finally, with the cunning of a master dramatist, he supplied love interest--without offending that large section of French womanhood to whom Le Colonel is attractive chiefly as a symbol of masculine chastity.

Act One reveals Colonel Lindbergh hearkening sympathetically to a beauteous young U. S. girl who passionately loves--a Frenchman. Unfortunately her U. S. father thinks that all Frenchmen are "lousy, dirty frogs" (Hisses from Audience).

With boyish dignity and innocence Le Colonel decides to span the Atlantic, uniting citizens of France and the U. S. by a common bond of heroism, and thus powerfully inducing the U. S. father to let his daughter marry the Frenchman.

Two highly melodramatic scenes show the take-off of Lindbergh from Roosevelt Field and his landing at Le Bourget. In both the technical staff of the Chatelet Theatre, famed specialists in scenic effects, nobly acquit themselves.

Thus far the audience sees only Lindbergh Number One, played by M. Armand Chatraine, a youth who was thought by all his friends to resemble the Colonel at the time of Lindbergh's actual landing in France (TIME, May 30, 1927).

The smash-finish of the play brings on Lindbergh Number Two, played by M. Pierre Tristan, who never realized that he resembled the Colonel until a Paris mob recently descended upon him (TIME, Oct. 1) and bore him shoulder high, under the impression that the real Lindbergh had slipped back to Paris.

Naturally this mob scene, including the original mobee, was shrewdly introduced by Playwright Guitry as his final, terrific curtain scene.

The other Parisian theatrical event of the week was the appearance of M. Nikita Balieff's famed Russian Bat Theatre, the Chauve-Souris in French for the first time. Heretofore, the troupe has played exclusively in Russian, with M. Balieff introducing each act in excruciating pidgin-English, French, German, or Italian.