Word: margetson
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...Woman If You Can and Land of Opportunitee; but Composer Schwartz gives you nothing whatever to hum. The dancing is agreeably tame, the chorus is more slight than select, the costumes lack charm and the singing lacks body. Leonora Corbett (Blithe Spirit) and Arthur Margetson (Around the World) are helpful performers but no miracle-workers. Park Avenue never catches the mood, or captures the lure, or achieves the high spirits of genuine musicomedy...
Flashes of hilarious dialogue are more than occasional; partly, we may imagine, a consequence of collaborator Nunnally Johnson's hand in the scripting. Ira Gershwin's customarily witty lyrics fare well under the care of Arthur Margetson, recently of "Around the World," who sings "Land of Opportunitee;" and Leonora Corbett, the other-worldly wife in Broadway's original "Blithe Spirit," who solidly sends "The Dew is on the Rose" (pro-early divorce: "before they ever rifted, they drifted--apart"), and the show's best song...
Unfortunately--or perhaps fortunately--for this reviewer, Arthur Margetson was unable to take his place in the lead role of Fogg at last night's performance. The unbeatable Orson, who has only a bit part himself (that of a magician in a Japanese Circus which holds forth on the stage for ten minutes) took over after dire warnings to the audience. Despite his failure to remember a large percentage of the lines, he brought down the house with his completely jocular case on the stage...
...remainder of the cast are obvious tools in the hands of the writers' carefree vein. Arthur Margetson gives a polished performance with plenty of English as the philandering husband of Julia who finally forsakes his "Vermin in Ermine" and returns to the fold. Carl Harbord is thoroughly sufficient as spite-lover of Julia and a young accountant who gets way out of his depth to sink ingloriously in the end. And the rest are all good, heavily-accented English characterizations. It won't be theatre weather when "Theatre" hits New York, but fast lines and a fine cast should hold...