Smiling Tiger

The annual production of Princeton University's Triangle Club--most ambitious of U. S. college musicomedies--is annually hailed by the current undergraduates as --much better than last year's show.--This year's Triangle show is called The Tiger Smiles. Its excellence easily equals anything the club has done since it was founded 42 years ago. The plot is to portray and satirize Princeton in the 1890's and 1990's. More time and attention are devoted to the earlier years, a happy choice. Most impressive factor in the opening scenes is the costuming. There is a vast and authentic array of pegbottom trousers, long-beaked caps, bulldog shoes. Second scene is laid in front of Reunion Hall, a considerably fresher looking edifice than the building by that name today. The boys break into a song: The Proctor likes Whiskey. Let's get him frisky--Maybe he will buy drinks for the crowd. . . . As is customary in Triangle shows, the script is peppered with undergraduate lampoons on the Princeton faculty, curriculum and social system, which are more interesting to student audiences and immediate relatives of the cast than to the public at large. A new high is set in Princeton satire, however, with a song which demonstrates how to become a member of one of the better Princeton clubs, particularly how to greet classmates on the main campus thoroughfare, McCosh walk. "Doing the McCosh walk" advises young men to arch their backs, protrude their chests, ignore less fortunate friends while grinning servilely at prominent classmates. Incidentally, the tune is one of the liveliest in the show. Other appealing melodies: "Something in the Air" and "On a Sunday Evening" (recorded by Guy Lombardo's orchestra for Columbia).

Triangle shows must have a story, however remote from the general scheme of entertainment. This year's story concerns Wilbur Wilkins, the campus loafer (Joshua Logan), whose policies are op posed by Buck Heyward (Harold Tasker), the villain who wishes to awaken Prince ton from its beer-drinking lethargy. Vil lain Heyward also covets the affections of Miss Graham (Harry Dunham), daughter of Professor Graham (James Henry Breasted Jr., son of famed Orientalist Breasted of the University of Chicago). He is thwarted by handsome Bruce Pelham (James Stewart). The plot then skips 100 years by the simple method of having Mr. Logan fall off a building and lapse into a coma. Best feature of the futuristic sequences is a ballet mecanique, led by blond and birdlike Mr. Dunham. Premiere of The Tiger Smiles was held in Princeton at the handsome new McCarter Theatre. Not since the old casino burned has Princeton had a Triangle first night. Cantankerous graduates may not think the show so funny as Espanola (1922), so tuneful as Drake's Drum (1924), so beautiful as Samarkand (1927) but it affords a large quantity of near-professional entertainment. On tour during the next two weeks, The Tiger Smiles may be viewed in Columbus, Chicago, Milwaukee. St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore.

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