New Revue in Manhattan

Touch and Go (sketches and lyrics by Jean & Walter Kerr; music by Jay Gorney; produced by George Abbott) is that never too common object, a lively topical revue. It has a nice sassy way of cutting up--once or twice, even, into murderously small pieces. But it can be genuinely funny as well as sassy, and it disdains rented jokes and reupholstered sketches. Campus bred,* the show has much more pertness than polish; it tends to slouch around with its socks hanging down, and it has the amateur's faith in the pen to the exclusion of the blue pencil.

But not every satirical revue can find two pleasant new ways of ribbing Hollywood: once in a studio scene where a trained gorilla seems, by comparison with the leading lady, a mental Einstein; and once when three stars who proved box-office as slatterns (Olivia de Havilland, Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Wyman) chant their triumphal formula: Be a mess, be a mess, be a mess! And not many revues can offer two full-length parodies that hit at least as many right notes as wrong ones: a musical-comedy Hamlet (with Dick Sykes), which has the good sense to swipe its music, and a Streetcar-like, Salesman-like version of Cinderella as it might have been directed by Elia Kazan.

The cast, if not notable, is likable and young, and fortunately includes one girl--willowy, blonde Kyle MacDonnell--for looks, and another--Singing Comedienne Nancy Andrews--for laughs.

* Other Catholic University productions to reach Broadway include Sing Out, Sweet Land!, Count Me In.

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