New Play in Manhattan

Bright Star (by Philip Barry; Arthur Hopkins, producer). Ten minutes after the curtain goes up on this one, Quin Hanna (Lee Tracy), introduces his fiancee Hope Blake (Julie Haydon) to a pair of old friends. "Hope," he says, "here are a couple of wonderful people--Kate Hastings and Sam Riddle. All gold, these two."

In practically the same words, Philip Barry has introduced to theatre audiences in the past decade a host of wonderful people, all gold. Dramatized versions of the folk Playwright Barry likes to gather about him, they were grown-ups whose adolescence had been recorded by F. Scott Fitzgerald. If they were poor, it was because they were heroically artistic. Usually, though, they were quite well off. The ladies wrapped their pretty shoulders in furs, danced in Palter DeLiso slippers, got their divorces in Paris. The gentlemen took the Harvard-Yale football game semiseriously, spoke an elliptical and charming language for which Playwright Barry became famed, were a little disillusioned as to Life but very stoical about it all.

Having made himself and Producer Hopkins a fortune with narratives concerning this gaudy set in such plays as Holiday (1928), Paris Bound (1927), Hotel Universe (1930), Playwright Barry solemnly resolved henceforth to keep his sacred and profane works separate. First result of this decision was a dramatic cropper two seasons ago when he wrote a pious work about some Boston Catholics called The Joyous Season. Taking a reef in his belt, Playwright Barry revealed last winter that, simply to make money enough for Producer Hopkins to present his forthcoming ballet, he was about to turn out Bright Star, which was to be as pleasant and profitable as Paris Bound. Bright Star slipped temporarily behind a cloud when tried out on the road last winter but when the lights went down at its Manhattan premiere last week, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt, in the fifth row, and Joan Crawford, in the fifteenth row, both sat up expectantly in their seats. What subsequently happened boded ill for the Barry ballet.

Piecing the tale together from the debris of sloppy obscurantism, childish motivation and antique methods of dramatic narration, reviewers found a fairly simple story: Quin Hanna, "an unscrupulous idealist," goes to a small New England town which for no good reason he decides to convert into a small-bore Utopia, marries a wealthy but vague young woman whom he does not love, gets sick of it, her and himself, is about to decamp when his wife dies. But no matter how frantically the actors called each other harsh names, slapped each other's faces, revealed their inmost psychical discomfiture with long-winded monologs, the situation remained peewee, implausible.

First-Nighter Roosevelt, whose husband has been accused of some fairly impractical promotions, must have winced at Hero Hanna's befuddled, sketchy plans to make his town and State a social and political "model for America." Adept only at rough-&-tumble, Actor Tracy indicates strong emotion simply by blinking his eyes, bobbing his Adam's apple.

For Actress Haydon, First-Nighter Crawford, no Duse herself, must have winced. Playwright Barry claims to have discovered Julie Haydon even before she was cast as the blonde and beatific poetess in the Hecht-MacArthur cinema The Scoundrel. As the unloved but tiresomely noble wife of Bright Star, Actress Haydon has not added much to what has already been seen of her dramatic repertoire: a far-away gaze, tightly clasped hands, a remote voice.

Not since quarrelsome Elmer Rice began to hit the skids has Broadway seen so important a failure as Bright Star which, to the great dismay of proud Mr. Barry, closed after five days.

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