New Musicals in Manhattan

Between the Devil (by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz; produced by Messrs. Shubert). When Between the Devil was floundering through New Haven and Philadelphia tryouts last October, its plot concerned an exuberant Englishman (Jack Buchanan.) who married two girls at once simply because he loved them both. After two months of meditation the producers decided that such wantonness would never go down, so Jack Buchanan was allowed wife No. 2 only because he thought No. 1 was lost in a shipwreck. Unfortunately for the show, this unworkable narrative contrivance does not go down so well either, but the music and dancing are topnotch, and Howard Dietz's lyrics are vastly superior to his book. When Jack Buchanan stops shuttling between boudoirs, he sings the best of the Schwartz tunes, By Myself, in an impressive top-hat manner.

Also imported from London with Veteran Buchanan are Evelyn Laye and Adele Dixon, the unreasonable lasses who refuse to share one man's love. Both of them pour forth their hearts like English skylarks, both are pretty as English hawthorn. Vilma Ebsen,* an all-American periwinkle, dances engagingly with Charles Walters.

Instead of the usual long line of lovelies, Between the Devil'?, chorus consists of only twelve girls, chosen, says the program, for their "air of distinction and breeding." Like a bed of well-bred poppies, their faces are vivid, beautiful, blank.

Three Waltzes (adapted by Clare Kummer & Rowland Leigh from a play by Paul Knepler and Armin Robinson; produced by Messrs. Shubert). Between old-fashioned operetta and newfangled musi-comedy is more than a gulf of years. Nevertheless light opera still goes on, for even in Manhattan many a theatregoer would still rather swoon to a waltz than tap his restless feet to the beat of a topical song. For such oldsters-by-preference, the Shuberts' second Christmas present, Three Waltzes, was as good as a plum pudding ablaze with Napoleon brandy.

Addicts of light opera might be offended by a humorous or credible plot. Three Waltzes in this respect is singularly inoffensive. Its charm lies in tuneful music, ebullient singing and dancing, vivid staging. In a ballet school, with costumes after Degas, begins the luckless romance of the ballerina (Kitty Carlisle) and Count Rudolph (Michael Bartlett). In Paris of 1900 the same pair appear as another ill-starred couple, with the ballet converted into Toulouse-Lautrec girls doing a violent cancan. At last, in a contemporary cinema studio, the lovers, as descendants of their former selves, find their happy ending.

Music for Three Waltzes was written by three homonymous composers. For Act I the melodies are Johann Strauss Sr.'s, popular Viennese bandleader of the mid-19th Century. Act II is credited to his son, Johann Jr., who wrote over 400 dance tunes, many operettas (Die Fledermaus, et al.). Act III's music is by Oscar Straus (Chocolate Soldier).

Michael Bartlett, whose even tenor was a mainstay of Princeton Triangle shows 13 years back, sings with as much grace and gusto as pretty Kitty Carlisle. Hampered in Hollywood by being only half-photogenic (one profile is much handsomer than the other), in Three Waltzes Singer Bartlett shows his full face. Costumes, by Connie De Pinna, are good all around.

*Brother Buddy, her old dancing partner, remains in Hollywood.

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