Word: play
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...FAIR PLAY - Munro Leaf - Stokes...
This nucleus cannot, however, keep any Shakespeare play on Broadway for long; the rest is a matter of showmanship. Among Shakespeare's works, Hamlet clearly has an edge because its hero's fascinating, elusive character interests many more people than Shakespeare does. But in general-as Shakespeare productions of the past few seasons bear out-neither a play's fame, nor its subject-matter, nor its length, nor its cast proves very much...
...tabloid Julius Caesar is a hit; so is a marathon Hamlet. A romantic play-Romeo and Juliet-starring Katharine Cornell, does well enough; a largely rhetorical one-King Richard II-starring a then not well-known Maurice Evans, does far better. Hamlet, with John Gielgud, then no name on Broadway, goes over big; with Leslie Howard, a big Broadway name, flops. Tallulah Bankhead cannot last a week in Antony and Cleopatra, Walter Huston cannot last a month in Othello. The simplest answer is almost certainly right: Shakespeare is as popular as his performance...
...have the time or inclination to get a full-time job nowadays. While the players of the pre-Tilden era were content with a summer junket to swank Eastern tournaments (and a trip abroad if they were very, very good), most of the present top-notch racketeers have to play tennis nine months out of the year, to keep up with the field...
...least true to form, he's good! With only Judy Carland and Charles Winninger to help him drag a so-so cast through the script, he has taken the show on his own Napoleonic shoulders and carried it through to Garcia. Along with being able to sing tap-dance play the piano, imitate Roosevelt, and other odd jobs, it might even he said that Rooney can act. His introduction to the problem of smoking a cigar is one of the funniest scenes put on Celluloid in a long time. He is even allowed to go through a tolerable love scene...