Rothafeller Center

Focus of U. S. theatrical attention last week was a great grey pylon which strikes the earth where Manhattan's Sixth Avenue Elevated fences off 50th and 51st Streets --the Radio City Music Hall of Rockefeller Center. Wags had already dubbed the locale of the new theatre, whose 6,200 seats make it the world's largest, the "Rothafeller" Center, for celebrated Showman Samuel Lionel O'Roxy") Rothafel was to produce this week--and as many weeks thereafter as he could make the $85,000 "nut" (overhead)--a monster variety bill twice daily.

The opening production had a Brobdingnagian minstrel show banked high on the mammoth stage, with scenery and costumes by Robert Edmond Jones, resident designer. Mr. Jones had also prepared a set for the battle of Fort McHenry where, 'mid Roxy's red glare. Francis Scott Key composed the national anthem. Only Pressagent Dexter Fellows of Ringling Bros. Circus could have done justice to the array of talent which Roxy brought together for the public to gape at and listen to for as long as two hours and as little as 75-c- including tax.

From the world of music came Titta Ruffo, formerly of the Metropolitan Opera; Coe Glade of the Chicago Opera; Viennese Tenor Otto Fassell; Vera Schwarz of the Berlin State Opera. Harald Kreutzberg, Martha Graham, Patricia Bowman danced. Apelike Funnyman Dr. Rockwell and Weber & Fields excited laughter. There was deep-voiced DeWolf Hopper, always willing to do "Casey at the Bat." The Wallendas, whom John Ringling found in Cuba, performed on the high wire. The Six Bronetts clowned. From radio came the successful Sisters of the Skillet. From the screen came Taylor Holmes. There were acrobats and jugglers.

From his seat in the middle of the orchestra, Roxy himself, surrounded by confusion, secretaries, yes-men, busboys with food, had spent six weeks directing great groups of choristers and dancers. There was a dancing chorus of 48 "Roxy-ettes;" a ballet of 80; a chorus of 100 voices; the Tuskegee choir of no. Erno Rapee led a symphony orchestra of 90.

Even more prodigious than the performance was the mechanical equipment of the theatre, most of which the spectator did not see. Here & there in the vast theatre, whose simply decorated, low striated vault should end one garish phase of theatre construction, was an amazing entertainment apparatus. Items:

A contour curtain which can frame the stage loo different ways.

A revolving stage.

Three manipulative sections of stage flooring.

A tank.

Six horns for motion pictures.

Two motion picture screens.

Translux apparatus.

A fountain in the middle of the revolving stage, operable in motion.

A public address system with 54 microphones.

Six motor-operated light bridges above the stage, each 104 ft. long.

Disappearing footlights.

Seats which absorb sound in the same degree as a clothed human body, thus assuring no empty auditorium ring if they are empty.

Washed, ionized, ozoned, ultraviolet, solarized air.

Slogan: "A visit is worth a month in the country."

Contrasting with the severity of Roxy's Music Hall auditorium is the decoration of the surrounding public rooms, for the most part the work of advanced young painters and sculptors encouraged by Mrs. John Davison Rockefeller Jr. In the lobby is a mighty mural by Ezra Winter. Yasuo Kuniyoshi decorated a ladies' "powder room" (toilet). The hands of Witold Gordon, Louis Bouche, Henry Billings, Donald Deskey (who art-directed the whole theatre) are in evidence.

Unlike his patron's wife, Roxy, onetime Marine, is no champion of L'Art Moderne. Last month he and ancient Actor DeWolf Hopper made a puzzled inspection tour of the theatre. They stopped before a Herculean, brushed-aluminum nude figure by William Zorach entitled The Spirit of the Dance.

"She's terrible," said Roxy. "She's all out of proportion. She looks as if she'd been hung for a week. She goes in here over'my dead body."

"I've had six wives and none of them looked as bad as that," agreed Actor Hopper.

Accompanying The Spirit of the Dance to the cellar went Gwen Lux's Eve, while Manhattan's art world ranted, tore its hair. Said Roxy: "Mrs. Rockefeller may like them. Mr. Rockefeller may like them. . . . But I don't like them. I think they're ugly. Take them away."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.