Old Play In Manhattan

The Barretts of Wimpole Street (by Rudolf Besier; produced by Katharine Cornell) is making its third Broadway appearance since 1931, after a G.I. tour overseas (TIME, Jan. 29). Katharine Cornell's great box-office hit has lost none of its popular lure or artistic worthlessness. And with the present production often retaining the broader treatment employed for G.I.s, The Barretts seems more theatrical and thumping than ever.

In a way, this is all to the good. By slighting its frail claims to be taken seriously, the play can be indulgently enjoyed as a gaiters-and-crinoline version of the princess, the knight and the dragon. The real Robert Browning can be assumed somewhere else while an immensely dashing impersonator (Brian Aherne) knocks Miss Barrett and her matinee following for a loop. The real and highly pathological Father Barrett can continue to interest psychiatrists while the stage article (McKay Morris) gets himself roundly hated and mentally hissed.

In her impervious sincerity Actress Cornell remains untouched by this fustian, makes Elizabeth Barrett not only a very appealing heroine but a conceivable human being.

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