Revivals

Fritz Leiber and the Chicago Civic Shakespeare Society. There are two schools of thought about Shakespearean productions. One holds that unless their splendors approach perfection, it is better to stay home and read the plays. The other insists that the great Shakespearean characters were meant to be seen and heard, that anyone who resists their appearance in the flesh, even though that flesh be pocked with imperfections, can be no true fancier of the drama.

Fritz Leiber's company is for the delectation of the tolerant second school. Mr. Leiber's settings and costumes often suggest a theatrical rummage sale; his supporting cast is apt to make up in exuberance what it lacks in finesse. But Mr. Leiber, with energy enough to play Hamlet, Macbeth and Shylock on successive nights, has also gusto enough to concentrate attention on himself, a worthy and gifted player. He sometimes skims his roles but never tortures them.

He presents Shakespeare that lacks glamour but makes sense. His Hamlet and Shylock are thoroughly understandable men beset by "equally perceivable woes. His Petruchio is an excruciating shrew-tamer. During his first Manhattan week he also played Macbeth, Malvolio (Twelfth Night), Richard III.

In the new Chicago Civic Opera building is an up-to-date secondary auditorium, red and brown and coppery, seating 900. where many Chicagoans in the past year have resumed their acquaintance with Shakespeare and liked it. Chief sponsor of the Chicago Civic Shakespeare Society is Harley L. Clarke, president of Utilities Power and Light Corp. Others: President Walter Dill Scott of Northwestern University; President Robert Maynard Hutchins of the University of Chicago; Rufus Cutler Dawes, financier, brother of Ambassador Charles Gates Dawes; Novelists Booth Tarkington and Meredith Nicholson; Managing Editor Henry Justin Smith of the Chicago Daily News.

Fritz Leiber was born in Chicago, acted in public school, stock, and the companies df Robert Mantell, Julia Marlowe, Ben Greet. For 25 years he has played Shakespeare up and down the nation. He is a trouper to the core--one of the few who resolutely keeps good dramatic company.

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