Condition Unchanged

Broadway, which has suffered through one inept comedy after another since Labor Day, was subjected to three in a row last week:

Buy Me Blue Ribbons (by Sumner Locke Elliot; produced by Jay Robinson) tells the story of a spoiled, posturing ex-Hollywood child star (Jay Robinson) who is persuaded to step out of a part he isn't right for, in a play he is producing with his own movie cash. The play was expressly written for Producer Robinson after he was persuaded to step out of such a part last season. He isn't right for this one, either: he plays a farce role with quite un-comic intensity. But the play does have a certain breeziness and three talented comediennes--Audrey Christie, Vicki Cummings, Enid Markey. They are cio match, however, for a sagging play and an actor who keeps spoiling his jokes.

Faithfully Yours (by L. Bush-Fekete & Mary Helen Fay; produced by Richard W. Krakeur) is one of those bits of fluff that are also fiends of dullness. It concerns a psychoanalyst who persuades a bird-brained wife that there is something unhealthy about her happy marriage and faithful husband. The worst thing about the play isn't that it never comes within hailing distance of satire, but that it is altogether stupefying as farce. And to the claptrap of Broadway, Movie Actors Ann Sothern and Robert Cummings add all the coyness of Hollywood.

Love and Let Love (by Louis Verneuil; produced by Anthony B. Farrell) is a vehicle for Ginger Rogers' first Broadway appearance in 21 years. It is a sort of bicycle built for two--both for being sadly out of date, and for letting Ginger play a glamorous actress and, in one scene, her sister, who has always taken a back seat. The actress has almost--but never quite --married many men, because her heart belongs to her first love (Tom Helmore). Discovering this, her middle-aged fiance (Paul McGrath) turns into a Mr. Fixit. Actress Rogers' costumes are one of the few real assets of the evening, along with her amazingly youthful looks and Actor Helmore's pleasantly natural playing.

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