New Plays in Manhattan

The Third Little Show. Had this revue not opened the same week as The Band Wagon it would have seemed a fairly remarkable production. For the most part it is above-average entertainment, featuring puckish Beatrice Lillie and small Ernest Truex (Lysistrata, Napi).

The secret of Miss Lillie's high comedy is that she appears to enjoy her clowning as much as the audience. Her funniest sketch in The Third Little Show is enacted in a Paris dive whither Miss Lillie, a visiting Englishwoman, and a spinsterish companion have repaired for a cup of tea. In spite of murder and rapine which takes place under her nose, Miss Lillie doggedly finishes her repast, incredibly chipper even when a corpse is draped over her shoulders. She also obliges with that old favorite: "There are Fairies at the Bottom of My Garden."

Most elaborate interlude in The Third Little Show is a travesty on current gang drama. Locale is the office of someone who looks a great deal like Chicago's Alphonse ("Scarface Al") Capone, and the young lovers promise each other:

First we'll have two girls,
Later we'll get new girls.
You'll be Adam, I'll be the madam
In our cottage in Cicero.

Best tunes from this tuneful production: "Falling In Love," "I've Lost My Heart," "You Forgot Your Gloves."

The Band Wagon has the services of Satirist George S. Kaufman (Once In A Lifetime) to show how ridiculous musical extravaganzas can be when done wrong, and Lyricist Howard Dietz and Composer Arthur Schwartz (The Little Show, Three's A Crowd) to demonstrate how good a revue can be when done right. Mr. Kaufman has first innings, sets his colleagues a stiff pace by presenting as a prelude a mad kaleidoscope of musicomedy cliches. There is an insanely pointless blackout, a senseless, sugary melody sung by ingenue and juvenile, a ludicrous torch song. A gesticulating chorus stamps out shouting:

If you haven't got rhythm,
If you haven't got rhythm,
If you haven't got rhythm,
Then you haven't got rhythm!*

Mr. Kaufman having mercilessly lampooned most of the usual elements of their craft, it is up to Messrs. Dietz & Schwartz to turn out something well out of the ordinary. They do. In rapid succession, lively, gracious Fred & Adele Astaire (Funny Face, Smiles) entertain with dancing to an accordion played by Brother Fred; a tasteful tune, "High & Low," is introduced; Frank Morgan (Topaze) and straight-faced Helen Broderick (Fifty Million Frenchmen) engage in a long argument while waiting for a taxi; Dancer Tilly Losch (This Year Of Grace) exhibits herself sinuously in a tasteful routine. Included in the tomfoolery is that extremely funny man Philip Loeb (Garrick Gaieties, June Moon).

Lead team of The Band Wagon is, of course, the Astaires. Never has this versatile pair been set to better advantage. As two incorrigible Parisian children playing hoops in the Pare Monceau (perhaps the loveliest of Albert R. Johnson's settings) it is evident that the Astaires have come a long way since leaving their native Omaha. Neb. Future revues will have a hard time equalling The Band Wagon's beauty, charm, imagination.

Unexpected Husband is very coarse and, for the most part, quite funny. It is the work of Barry Conners (Applesauce, The Patsy), who has managed to construct a lively, summery farce without becoming sleazy.

The play relates the difficulties of a rich loafer named Perry Morrison who gets drunk and runs off with his friend's fiancee, also drunk. Thereafter the hero is dogged until the final curtain by newspaper reporters, the girl's large father from the Texas badlands and alcoholic amnesia. Included in the proceedings is an inebriated Justice of the Peace (Hugh Cameron) whose lampoon of a toper is as amusing as Robert Middlemass' broad portrayal of the sturdy Western parent. At one point, when Mr. Middlemass has particularly good cause to suspect his daughter of impure conduct, he pulls a revolver, threatens to "let this hell stick start spitting all over the place." Unexpected Husband is inoffensively rough-&-tumble diversion.

*In Beggar On Horseback (1924), Mr. Kaufman's jibe at the popular ballade was "If You Turned Me Down Like You Turned Me Down, Then Why Did You Turn Me Down?"

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