Word: shumlin
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Aside from its big scene, however, Inherit the Wind loses from being more documentary than creative. It is too journalistic in tone, too diffuse and shapeless in movement. Under Director Herman Shumlin's able supervision, there are plenty of vivid snapshots and plenty of lively moments, but the play provides no sustained drama. And what does seem fictional seems all too much so: a vapid love story between Scopes and a hard-shell preacher's daughter; a Mencken who talks more like a smarty-pants cribbing from the real Mencken's prose. But if Inherit the Wind...
...Herman Shumlin's ability as director is evident in the fact that there are no serious flaws or lapses of pacing in the show. Presumably, too, he will get a touch more animation into Mr. Jourdan's performance. Actually, Samarkand is very near the peculiar, dim excellence of plays that are an unmodified good...
...producing with a brace of French plays: the musical, Orpheus in the Underworld, based on Jacques Offenbach's score and with a new book by Ben Hecht (see Music) ; and a dramatization of André Gide's The Immoralist, starring Geraldine Page and directed by Herman Shumlin. Other French entries: The Strong Are Lonely, with Victor Francen and Margaret Webster; and a Louis Kronenberger adaptation of Jean Anouilh's bitter Colombe, a starring vehicle for talented Julie Harris...
...William and Jean Eckart is conventional, but it effectively catches the spirit of the rambling English country manor; Herman Shumlin's direction is perceptive and crisp, but there are a couple of wordy spots in the first act where the action drags...
Though Lace on Her Petticoat made a lukewarm impression on Manhattan critics, it impressed Herman Shumlin's fellow producers mightily. Reason: the play, first legitimate production of the new season, cost only $36,000 to put on, and can survive on a weekly gross of $8,100. Despite adverse notices, it appeared at week's end that Shumlin's low operating costs might enable his backers to get something of a run for their money...