New Play in Manhattan

Life Begins at 8:40 (words & music by Ira Gershwin, E. Y. Harburg & Harold Arlen; Shuberts, producers). Until recently a look at the program was unnecessary to identify Shubert revues. Their hallmark was stage furnishings which suggested nothing so much as Eighth Avenue second-hand shops. The height of scenic imagination was usually a gauze drop behind which tottered in semidarkness a troupe of half-naked show girls. The decor of Life Begins at 8:40, turned out by the youngest and best man in the business, is no more like that of typical Shubert offerings than chicken salad is like chicken feed.

Ably abetted by John Murray Anderson and no less than seven costume designers, Albert Johnson has set the show in superb fashion. The first crack out of the Johnson paint box is a charming mechanical clock revolving in centre stage. Two automata strike at bells while other mummers, masked and mounted on wooden disks like toy soldiers, circle past. With this pantomime of musical revue, Life Begins at 8:40 gets off to a good start at about 8:50.

Generous to the point of extravagance, the show offers four worthwhile lady entertainers: 1) saturnine Luella Gear, complaining that she has tried all the advertised luxuries of life but still "I Couldn't Hold My Man"; 2) lean Frances Williams who sings "Fun To Be Fooled" with bright authority; 3) a pert little body from the night clubs named Dixie Dunbar who kicks and chortles cutely; 4) Esther Junger, a concert dancer, bringing Carnegie Hall technique to frivolous Broadway.

Theatregoers may not roll in the aisles when lanky Ray Bolger impersonates a window dresser retiring for the night, or when squalling, grimacing Bert Lahr is bilked by a stockbroker. But plenty of people will be amused by Cartoonist Robert Wildhack who brings to the footlights an old trick that made his Victor record, "Snores & Sneezes," famed some 20 years ago. Mr. Wildhack timidly comes onstage in cap & gown, nervously thumbing a notebook, to lecture on labial "Sound Phenomena." With authentic academic embarrassment, he takes up snores, classifies them scientifically, self-consciously illustrates them. Snore 2 d, the "Westinghouse Airbrake," a heart-rending grunt followed by a melancholy whistle, is probably excelled only by 2 f, "The Troubled Conscience," a short moan preceding a moment of insane babble.

Life Begins at 8:40, the season's first first-rate entertainment, is graced with good music by Harold Arlen, perennial Cotton Club revue composer ("Stormy Weather," "Breakfast Ball"). Highly suitable for humming: "What Can You Say in a Love Song," "Let's Take a Walk Around the Block," "You're a Builder-upper."

At 24, after six years in the business, Albert Richard Johnson has been called "the father of musical comedy design." Son of an agricultural expert and professional Russian observer named Albert Aaron Johnson (Russia at Work, The Soviet Union at Work, Progress in the Soviet Union), he knew a little about drafting when he came to Manhattan from Florida to study with Norman Bel Geddes. He learned all Geddes could teach him in eight months, appeared on Broadway at 18 announcing that he was "God's gift to the Theatre." Twice thrown out of Producer William Harris Jr.'s office in a day, he returned a third time. To squelch him, Harris gave him the script of The Criminal Code, told him to come back next morning with complete sketches and blue prints for the stage design. Prodigy Johnson bent to this mighty task, appeared next morning with the work. He had subordinated detail to mass and form, and his designs not only were accepted but assured him overnight of a good living.

Three's a Crowd was the next Johnson job. In 1931 he was employed on The Band Wagon. His merry-go-round scene and the Pare Monceau set used a two-way revolving stage for the first time. His colors were strong, but not loud, and his grasp of scenic design was flawless. Then indeed was Albert Johnson hailed by critics. Since that time he has had as much work as he could do: Face the Music, Americana, Let 'Em Eat Cake, As Thousands Cheer, Ziegfeld Follies. He has found time to tour Sweden, visit his father in Moscow, have a fling at Hollywood, build the sets for the London production of Waltzes from Vienna. He also did the sets for Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur's new cinema, Crime Without Passion (see p. 40).

Though somewhat shy, Prodigy Johnson is willing to talk all night about himself if he likes you. He gets inspiration from listening to the music for a show, rarely builds models for his scenery. He says he is in the business only for the money. As soon as he can, he is going to Hollywood to make a fortune (he gets a maximum of $5,000 per stage show), retire, buy a boat, sail to the Cocos Islands to hunt treasure.

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