Girl Crazy. The pleasantest interlude in Girl Crazy, a conspicuously pleasant show, is furnished by a quartet of young men sufficiently resembling cowboys who amble across the stage three times in the first act and sing a sweet, lazy little song called "Bidin' My Time (That's the Kind of Guy I'm)." The attraction also contains the best music George & Ira Gershwin have written since Oh, Kay!, an outstandingly comely chorus, talented and virginal
Ginger Rogers and Allen Kearns — the Easterner whose father has banished him to the badlands. But biggest asset to the show is the person of Ethel Merman who, as a honkeytonk singer, strolls out on the stage at the Act I finale and electrifies spectators by shouting "Sam & Delilah," an extremely low-down Gershwinian num - ber with a deep blue base. It is also Miss Merman who, in another piece, croons:
How could I have grown so To love that dirty SO-&-SD? Look what love has done to me!
The comedy is furnished chiefly by Willie Howard, a pathetic-looking Levantine, who, having driven Mr. Kearns out West in his taxicab, is elected sheriff and spends most of his time disguised as an Indian to elude the tough hombres.
Three's A Crowd has for its principals the triple-threat team of last year's Little Show: nimble, spindle-shanked, emaciated Clifton Webb; droll, ready-voiced Fred Allen; mellifluous, primordial Libby Holman So excellent is the work of these three performers that the framework of the show seems almost negligible. Best scenes of the headliners:
Clifton Webb, staggering around a weird barroom full of grotesque, masked figures, some of whom sway in cadence on rockered bar stools, some of whom drink from gargantuan champagne glasses filled by two-headed attendants. Climax comes when Mr. Webb seizes and strips one of the patrons, rushes her offstage.
Libby Holman, backed up against a black velvet drop, performing economical, graceful gestures with her fingers, ably ululating an English importation called "Body & Soul." Rear-Admiral Fred Allen, attired in Antarctic haberdashery, lecturing before an incomprehensible hodgepodge projected on the screen ("the base camp"), explaining that his expedition has discovered and claimed "not ten, not 20, but 100,000 sq. mi. of brand new snow for the U. S." Also Fred Allen wondering if he whistled in his sleep: "When I woke up this morning there were four dogs in bed with me." Twelfth Night. Perhaps because the works of William Shakespeare are reputed ageless, most recent Shakespearean productions have been rigged out with modernistic settings, actors in mufti, sundry sensationalisms. In tune with her time, Jane Cowl has for her stage settings a huge book of Shakespeare which is unfolded to make various scenes. Her performance as Viola is lively, her grace and beauty are used to good effect. But Leon Quartermain gives the most worthy interpretation, bringing rich and affecting pathos and frustration to the difficult role of pompous Major Domo Malvolio.
Among firstnighters were Mary Louise ("Texas') Guinan and James Joseph ("Gene") Tunney. Scholar Tunney went behind between acts, offered Miss Cowl his "fe-li-ci-ta-tions" on a "per-fect-ly de-light-ful'' performance.