Girl Trouble concerns a shy youth who loves one girl, is pursued by another, loved by a third, and tormented by his relatives. With a disturbing lack of comic inspiration, the play proceeds until the right girl wins.
The Grey Fox, billboards announced, was Niccolo Machiavelli, but audiences found to their disappointment that this Machiavelli, played by Henry Hull, written by one Lemist Esler (Yale Drama School product), and directed by William A. Brady Jr., was not, as history has imagined him, a murderous medieval wardheeler but on the contrary, a single-hearted patriot whose love-life was unfortunate. An overwritten text and an overdressed cast somehow made it seem improbable, uninteresting.
Animal Crackers. Zeppo Marx has good stage manners though he is otherwise without importance; Chico Marx plays the piano well and can, to some extent, imitate an Italian; Groucho Marx is garrulous and mad; but Harpo Marx has a wild and silent face, his desires are mysterious and he can play the harp. The four Marx brothers cavort together in Animal Crackers.
George S. Kaufman's book is far from being good and the plot of the show is too foolish to mention. There are songs and dancing, the former less remarkable than the latter. But Harpo, when he is through playing the harp, peers like a prisoner through the strings of his instrument; he pursues a girl quietly wherever she goes; his are light fingers as well as light touch and he picks pockets with dexterous greed; on meeting a new person, he offers his leg to be held and he whistles strangely, in his own way.
Gods of the Lightning. When Sacco and Vanzetti were executed for the murder of a paymaster, there were many people who thought they were unjustly punished. "Sacco and Vanzetti were martyrs." said these people, "and they will not be forgotten." Thereafter, little was heard concerning Sacco and Vanzetti; it appeared that one of the most exciting episodes of U. S. jurisprudence was not even to arouse the enthusiasm of artists capable of crying in a prosperous wilderness. Then, last week. Maxwell Anderson (coauthor of What Price Glory) and Harold Hickerson (piano-theory teacher at the New York Conservatory of Musical Art) aided by Director-Producer Hamilton McFadden and a seasoned cast, delivered a play which caused youthful Marxians to applaud for five minutes after the first night curtain, aided in their bravos by seasoned play-goers who knew they had seen a good play.
The gloomy tale is retold with vindictive emphasis. The names of the anarchists are Macready and Capraro; Macready is engaged to marry the lovely and emotional daughter of a restauranteur who himself confesses in court to the murder for which Macready and Capraro are electrocuted, out of sight of the audience. In the courtroom scene, far more exciting than its actual model, Macready asks pertinent questions and Capraro is full of idealistic gentleness.