The Theatrical Callboard

Critical Notes Before the Curtain Rises

KENNETH MACGOWAN

WITH the worst theatrical season of a generation behind them the New York managers nonchalantly promise the following for 1922-23: The Moscow Art Theatre, the greatest realistic acting company in the world, headed by Stanislavsky and appearing in the most famous plays of its repertory.

Eleanora Duse, the greatest of living actresses, in The Lady from the Sea, by Henrik Ibsen, and one or two other notable dramas.

The Guitrys—Lucien, finest actor of france Sacha, the brilliant playwright, and Yvonne Printemps, Sacha's wife and leading lady—in such plays of Sacha's as Deburau, Pasteur, The Grand Duke, The Illusionist, Nono, The Fall of Berg-op-Zoom, and Jacqueline.

Kommissarzhevsky, one of Russia's three or four outstanding directors, to produce the plays of the Theatre Guild.

Maria Orska, a Russo-German actress fresh from a rather sensational kind of success in Berlin playing Wedekind, to be seen in Manon Lescaut, a new version by Carl Sternheim.

John Barrymore's return to the stage, perhaps in Richard III, perhaps in Hamlet, perhaps in a play by Eugene O'Neill.

Ethel Barrymore in a repertory venture under Arthur Hopkins' management, the first play to be Gerhardt Hauptmann's Rose Bernd.

Mrs. Fiske in a repertory of Ibsen.

Marie Tempest, in The Serpent's Tooth, by Arthur Richman, the English comedienne revisiting America after some half dozen years.

Promised Plays

BESIDES these plans involving personalities, the managers offer already the titles of a number of interesting plays:

Peer Gynt, by Henrik Ibsen, to be revived by the Theatre Guild with Joseph Schildkraut in the part played formerly by Mansfield.

The Devil's Disciple, by Bernard Shaw, another Guild revival from the repertory of Mansfield.

Masse - Mensch, the extraordinary drama of social revolution acted with great success in Berlin.

R. U. R., a Frankenstein drama of a world run by mechanical workmen, translated from the Czech of Karel Capek.

The Insect Comedy, a satire in terms of butterflies, grubs and ants, also from the Czech of Capek.

The Fountain, by Eugene O'Neill, a drama of Ponce de Leon's search for the Fountain of Youth, O'Neill's first venture into poetic prose; to be acted by either John or Lionel Barrymore.

Die W under lichen Geschichten des Kappelmeister Kreisler, a novel Berlin success in forty-two scenes.

Loyalties, Galsworthy's new play, and Shall We Join the Ladies, a satire by Barrie on the murder-mystery play both in a single bill

Six Characters in Search of an Author, a novelty from the Italian of Pirandello If, Lord Dunsany's fantastic play. Aimer, a play by Paul Geraldy, au-

thor of the for Grace George. The Enchanted Lady, a fantasy by Pinero in a vein he has never before attempted.

East of Suez, a melodrama by Somerset Maugham.

The Prude's Fall, by Rudolph Besier, who wrote Don, and May Edgington Harris.

If Winter Comes, a dramatization of A. S. M. Hutchinson's novel made by Basil Macdonald Hastings, author of The New Sin.

L'Enfant de l'Amour, Henry Bataille's drama, translated as The Child of Love. Pomeroy's Past, by Clare Kummer, in which Roland Young will oppear.

Bristol Glass, a comedy by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson.

The Awful Truth, still another play by Arthur Richman, who wrote Ambush and A Serpent's Tooth; a vehicle for Ina Claire.

The Equity Players

THIS year finds two of the principal forces in the Provincetown Players, George Cram Cook and Susan Glaspell, in Greece, and another, Eugene O'Neill, very busy with his own affairs. As a consequence this valuable little experiment theatre, which gave us The EmPer or Jones and The Hairy Ape, Bernice and The Verge, will take a year's vacation. By a disastrous coincidence, Irene and Alice Lewisohn, the two sisters who have been responsible for that very exceptional venture, the Neighborhood Playhouse, from which has come good play after good play, have likewise decided upon a year off. Thus New York was threatened in the late spring with the prospect of having only one permanent theatre organization, the Theatre Guild, to minister to its needs for venturesome and intelligent drama during the coming season. The summer has brought the announcement. however, of the formation of the Equity Players, by the Actors' Equity Association, and the leasing of the Forty-Eighth Street Theatre for the presentation of plays on a short-run basis. The venture has begun propitiously with a large capital paid in and a subscription list well filled. Better still they have engaged an excellent director in Augustin Duncan and an intelligent and idealistic play-selecting committee in Walter Prichard Eaton, Owen Davis, Dr. Richard Burton, Robert Benchley, Wallace Eddinger and Vera Bloom.

A Barrymore Repertory

STILL another effort toward the establishment of a permanent art theatre in New York is to be seen in the announced season of Ethel Barrymore at the Longacre under the direction of Arthur Hopkins. It has long been absurdly evident that the whole Barrymore family—with the assistance of Uncle John Drew, if necessary—should found a repertory theatre. With the varied personalities of Ethel, John and Lionel and the vogue of their names, the success of their venture would be assured. Not so bad a beginning, however is the Ethel Barrymore-Arthur Hopkins project. Upon September 26, Miss Barrymore will be seen in Rose Bernd, Gerhardt Hauptmann's peasant tragedy, in the published translation of Ludwig Lewisohn with Robert Edmond Jones designing the settmgs. Later will come other plays—Hedda Gabler among them. Sir Herbert Tree used to say: "When is a repertory theatre not a repertory theatre? When it's a success." Hopkins has had too great and too long an ambition for a permanent theatre for this present venture to be wrecked on the rare and pleasant rock of a full house.