Seven Minds & Four Cultures

(See front cover)

When the audience at Manhattan's Belasco Theatre one night this week threw away programs, reached for hats & coats and made for the doors, neither spectators nor reviewers were quite sure how good a play they had seen. Criticism is the wife of Comparison, and there never was a play like this one on Broadway. But one thing is certain. No one will soon forget Katharine Cornell's Lucrece.

The Story should have been familiar to all. To while away the tedium attendant upon their siege of Ardea, Tarquin, son of the Roman king, and some of his officers make a surprise visit to Rome to see how their wives are behaving them selves. They are not behaving very well. One is presiding at a merry feast, another is stretched naked on her bed dead drunk, another cannot be found at all. But Lucrece, the chaste and virtuous wife of Collatine, is found spinning with her maids. Tarquin eyes her hungrily.

The next evening Tarquin calls for his horse, sets off toward Rome by himself. At the house of Collatine he calls for hospitality. In the middle of the night, with none awake save yowling dogs and thieves, he steals into Lucrece's bed place. He threatens to kill her, then kill a slave and leave their dead bodies together if she refuses to give herself to him. Next day she summons her husband, tells him what occurred, stabs herself. Shakespeare, who tells the tale best, concludes:

The Romans plausibly did give consent

To Tarquin's everlasting banishment.

The Production, a magnificent theatrical achievement, is the product of seven fertile minds and four cultures. Andre Obey, playwright of The Smiling Mme Beudet which the Theatre Guild once produced, wrote the piece, helping himself to a liberal portion of the Shakespearean poem. Actress Cornell and her husband, Producer Guthrie McClintic, were sent a script following its London appearance. They telegraphed Thornton Niven Wilder asking him to re-English the piece, with as little deviation from Messrs. Shakespeare's and Obey's lines as possible. Author Wilder, who is sufficiently stage-struck to read Variety from cover to cover each week, gladly undertook the job. Composer Deems Taylor, a good friend of the McClintics, made a translation of the play for himself. He said it needed music and he would do it. He had not written any incidental music since Beggar On Horseback. Robert Edmund Jones took a good long look at the costumes of Tiepolo's subjects and the facades of Palladio, went to work dressing and setting Lucrece.

The costumes and language of Lucrece are of the Renaissance. So is the one setting, an eloquently severe circular Palladian colonnade. Add to this Renaissance telling of a Roman legend, recast by 20th Century ingenuity, a strong Hellenic element.

A considerable portion of the part of Lucrece (Actress Cornell) is played in pantomime. In Scene 2 she is first discovered, spinning in dumb show. She welcomes Tarquin with gestures, speaks only to bid him good night. Meantime two narrators, grey-clad in golden masks, have stolen on the stage. They are the Chorus. One is Robert Loraine, Boer and World War hero whose voice and diction are honey-rich, a happy survivor of the Theatre's Golden Age. He is not only Tarquin's mouthpiece, but History, the critic. Blanche Yurka's sad soft voice carries the part of the other narrator. Her viewpoint is feminine, compassionate. Through her, from time to time, issue Lucrece's unspoken thoughts. Result is that all triviality is stripped away from Actress Cornell's part, leaving her to speak for herself only the big dramatic scenes: the brutal and shocking rape, the anguished awakening, the suicide.

Perhaps the most moving sequence in Lucrece occurs when the narrators at last converse together, just as the Roman mob is Beginning to suspect the king's son's evil deed. "The Romans crossed their thresholds on their left feet this morning," says Narrator Loraine. "Paris will be Revolution and Berlin War, but Rome is History today." "A woman is about to die," cries Narrator Yurka, pleading that they save Lucrece. Narrator Loraine quotes Livy's history to her explaining that they can do nothing. "Poor bird, poor frighted deer," wails Narrator Yurka. "What's that?" her companion asks irritably. "That's Shakespeare."

After the final tragedy, however, when Lucrece lies dead in mourning on a darkening stage and Brutus harangues the crowd to put an end to kings, the stern male narrator's heart melts. "Poor bird," repeats Narrator Yurka. Sorrowfully adds he: "Poor frighted deer." Curtain.

The Actress, The mantle of the late great John Drew automatically falls upon the shoulders of the president of the Players' Club. Present incumbent, Walter Hampden, is unquestionably Dean of the U. S. Stage. No such pat kudos indicates the identity of his consort. Who is the U. S. Stage's queen?

No longer is it Ethel Barrymore. about whom clings the bitterness of disappointed ambition. Jane Cowl is a lovely Juliet, but she has no long list of great dramatic triumphs to her credit. Grace George and her step-daughter Alice Brady, who turned in an exciting performance with last season's Mourning Becomes Electra, are each more notable for drawing room comedy than for serious drama. Lynn Fontanne is a shrewd and charming actress in her own right, yet her name & fame are fast coupled in the public mind with those of her husband and teammate, Alfred Lunt. Eva Le Gallienne is an acid Hedda Gabler, but more celebrated is her organization, the Civic Repertory Theatre, which brings good plays within reach of the penurious. Pauline Lord, Alia Nazimova, Helen Hayes, Blanche Yurka, Lenore Ulric--do any of these fill the stature of queenhood? For many thousands of U. S. playgoers, only one actress does--Katharine Cornell.

Katharine Cornell was born in Berlin during the Spanish-American War. Her father, a native of Buffalo, N. Y., had gone abroad to study medicine. She "was promptly brought home. When she was 18 she left Oakesmere School at Mamaroneck, N. Y., migrated to Manhattan and, living on a little money she had inherited, spent her time hanging around the rehearsals of the Washington Square Players, an organization which later became the Theatre Guild. She got one walk-on part with this group, returned to Buffalo where her father managed a theatre as a sideline. In Buffalo she worked with the Jessie Bonstelle Stock Company for one year. Followed a season in London with Little Women. Followed one more year with the Bonstelle mummers. At this point two important things happened to her. Her director sent her down to New York, hoping that Grace George would give her a part. Miss George did not. Shortly thereafter Miss Cornell married Guthrie McClintic. who had gotten his start in show business from Winthrop Ames and had met her when he worked with the Bonstelle company. At that time he was casting director for Winthrop Ames. Producer Ames gave the McClintics for a wedding present the script of The Dover Road, a document which proved to be the deed to a small gold mine. It founded the present Cornell-McClintic fortune.

The year of her marriage, 1921, was to be the red-letter year of Actress Cornell's theatrical career. As Sydney in A Bill of Divorcement she rationalized, idealized the post-War flapper. Next came two costume parts (in Will Shakespeare and Casanova), two mistakes (The Way Things Happen, The Outsider), a scarlet misstep with David Belasco (Tiger Cats), and then Candida. George Bernard Shaw has never met Katharine Cornell. One look at her photograph, however, and the bearded sage of Adelphi Terrace pronounced her the best Candida who ever played the part.

Now begins the series of bravura roles which still cause critical dismay and the almost unanimous opinion that Katharine Cornell is an actress who has triumphed in spite of her parts. The actress disagrees. "I have never been persuaded by a management to appear in a production in which I did not wish to be seen. Whatever may be said about the drama in which I have acted, I am very glad I selected them for in every one of them I have benefited greatly in the development of my work by the experience gained." In analysis, her playing these parts is not inconsistent with her classic role in last week's Lucrece; they were intense characterizations, rich ripe melodramatics to test the mettle of a serious tragedienne.

The cycle which terminated with her playing murderesses in Somerset Maugham's The Letter and in Dishonored Lady, began with Michael Aden's Green Hat. Only those who saw and relished the play in 1925 are now capable, upon reflection, of appraising its utter trashiness. The celebrated headpiece which Actress Cornell affected in this play, "pour le sport and bravely worn," was duplicated and widely bought throughout the country for $22.50. It was in "Cornell green." Author Arlen made $200,000 in royalties from the play.

Phase 3 of Katharine Cornell's theatrical life began last year when she produced with her husband The Barretts of Wimpole Street. Her portrayal of the invalid poetess was the season's sensation. There are figures to prove it. When she withdrew the Manhattan production to take it on the road it was still doing $20,000 worth of business a week. She grossed $33,000 in Philadelphia during Holy Week. Ten thousand folk were turned away from a benefit performance in Chicago. When the tour ended in San Francisco, The Barretts had taken in $1,500,000.

Actress Cornell, in staking her queenhood last week on kingly love, Roman honor and Andre Obey, did it with both eyes open. She believes the part is a test for her. If she succeeds, she wants sometime to do Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra.

Katharine Cornell is of more than average height. Her broad, mobile face is ruled off at the bottom quarter by a large, loose mouth which can be as horrible as a conventionalized Grecian mask or can twist up into one of the most appealing smiles on the U. S. boards. Her eyes are as heavy-lidded as Tallulah Bankhead's. not from cinematographic languor but from a ceaseless brooding contemplation. She now wears her dark, slightly wavy hair shoulder length and behind her ears. Her friends call her "Kit." She is precious in the care of her voice, does not like to talk before a performance. Before and after all, she is an actress. She is intelligent, not intellectual. "To act." says she. "you have to burst out spontaneously and feel constantly and deeply. So if you're too accustomed to using your head instead of your feelings you won't be able to call on your feelings when you want them. I tell young women not to come on the stage, unless there is nothing else they can be happy in."

Because of her natural aloofness and the fact that she has been a major theatrical figure for only eleven years, the body of Cornellian legend is meagre. But two tales told on Actress Cornell, whether or not apocryphal, are characteristic. One reflects her extraordinary modesty: Producer Gilbert Miller once telephoned from Manhattan to England to congratulate Actress Cornell on her birthday. She could not imagine anyone doing such a thing, thought someone was playing a joke, hung up. Another story indicates the utter seriousness with which Actress Cornell takes the theatre, no matter on which side of the footlights she happens to be. At a performance by Eleanora Duse, a celebrated actress and her companion assisted the audience in bringing the play to a momentary halt by standing up and cheering. From behind them came the authoritative voice of Katharine Cornell: "Sit down, you damned fools!"

Her Manhattan home is on Beekman Place, overlooking the East River. Welfare Island and the belching factories of Brooklyn. In it is a brocade divan from Mrs. Partridge Presents, a chair from The Dover Road, a table from The Green Hat, a portrait from The Age of Innocence. They also have a home at Sneden's Landing, a small colony tucked under the Hudson palisades some 20 mi. from Manhattan. In the course of a wedding celebrated there last year by her landlady's son. Miss Cornell and "Flush," the water spaniel who was in The Barretts, were pitched into the river when the dock collapsed. She has a grip of iron, plays a fair game of tennis, a much better game of golf. Ernest Jones, professional at the Women's National Golf Club, who trained Glenna Collett, worries about her because she will not give up the stage, says that in six months he could have her in tournament form. "She doesn't know what she is missing," he says.

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