Word: masons
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Well, I never thought I'd ever see James Mason singing, soft-shoeing, and straw-hatting his way through old vaudeville routines. But this is precisely what he is doing this week in his Boston stage debut. He evidently had the same yen that Sir Laurence Olivier recently satisfied in John Osborne's The Entertainer; and what's more, both Mason's material and performance are superior to Olivier...
...Mason's vehicle on this occasion is Mid-summer, a sentimental comedy that had a short Broadway run in 1953, written by Vina Delmar (chiefly known for her serialized novels in women's magazines). The play is not very substantial; but it is at least competently written and, in this production, always engaging. The beginning, however, is unfocussed; and there are numerous evidences of obvious padding, where, for instance, characters quote poetry, the Declaration of Independence, the agnostic writing of Robert Ingersoll, and the roster of U.S. presidents, or occupy themselves in a spelling bee and an arithmetic problem...
...through Tuesday). This is one of the finest suspense double-bills to come along in years. Orson Welles is one of the most imaginative geniuses in the theatrical world today; in Touch, aided by Charlton Heston, he uses his unflagging gifts to produce a masterful film. In Cry, James Mason and Rod Steiger try to outwit each other, with climactic scenes in an elevator shaft and a subway tunnel...
Closer to the Square, however, is the Boston Summer Theatre, at New England Mutual Hall. Opening July 7 with Bert Lahr in Visit to a Small Planet, the Summer Theatre will also present James Mason in Mid-Summer (July 14-19); Basil Rathbone and Geraldine Page in Separate Tables (July 21-26); Tonight at 8:30, with Faye Emerson (July 28-Aug. 2); Hal March in A Hole in the Head (Aug. 4-9); Dulcy, with Dody Goodman (Aug. 11-16); and Melvyn Douglas in Strange Partners, a new play by Florence Lowe and Caroline Francke...
Home for a festive Iowa wingding was Composer Meredith (The Music Man) Willson, who jovially greeted some 20,000 of the Mason City homefolks, grabbed a baton and proudly led a 208-piece band (with, naturally, 76 trombones and no cornets) down the main street, later uncorked lus ire at rock 'n' roll: "It's a plague as far-reaching as any plague we've aver had. My preoccupation with this creeping paralysis is not with the lascivious quality, the suggestive dancing that goes with it. This is bad, and it's been condemned before...