The Harem. David Belasco received from the French Government the cross of the Legion of Honor for distinguished contributions to the advancement of Art. A few days later, he produced one of the cheapest plays of his career. The critics wrote vaguely favorable reports, possibly thanks to the Belasco tradition, possibly thanks to the popularity of Lenore Ulric.
The piece is a watercolor replica of The Guardsman with strident coloring where subtlety was essential. A husband works busily at his amours through a yellow satin bedroom scene and discovers that the masked lady is his wife. Against a bedroom back-ground that would rouse envy in the heart of Cecil DeMille, Miss Ulric displays extensively what Percy Hammond deftly dubbed her "creamy torso." Details of domestic intimacy are dealt about in handfuls. It is all completely artificial, like a luxuriously frosted cake with tasteless layers. Miss Ulric's playing in a part widely afield from he gamineries of Kiki is as engaging s possible under the thankless circumstances.
Alexander Woolcott—"A perfumed and bawdy farce."
Gilbert W. Gabriel—"About as much delicacy as the Mann Act—farce laid on in broad and loosely-stitched strips."
Close Harmony. Dorothy Parker is known chiefly for her satiric agility in verse (Hate Songs, etc.). Elmer Rice is variously familiar as the author of On Trial and The Adding Machine. Together they have turned out a telling transcript of existence as it is endured in the suburbs.
Ed Graham has a wife whose querulous goodness is an echo of a middle-class marriage which has been running twelve years and needs winding up. Next door lives Belle Sheridan, former chorus girl struggling with a shaky husband. Ed and Belle fall in love through the course of one expertly edited afternoon alone. They are about to run away. At the high point of their adventure, Ed's offensive little daughter is kicked in the stomach by a neighbor's urchin. Ed loses his grip and re-enters his domestic temple of despair, psychologically renovated by the crisis.
The complacency of small minds is the maddening target against which the play is driven, but poor dramatics often veer the strident arrow of philosophy from its course. Interesting, it may not be popular.
Stark Young—"All compact with parallels and full of grim gaiety, domesticity and dull fates."