Last week Broadway was unusually busy but not very bright:
The Girl from Nantucket (book by Paul Stanford & Harold Sherman; music by Jacques Belasco; lyrics by Kay Two-mey). Offering the season's most cranked-out tunes, most threadbare gags, most feeble-minded smut, and strangest notion of a ballet, The Girl from Nantucket rated —and got from Manhattan reviewers—the critical equivalent of a well-aimed flyswatter.
Are You With It? (book by Sam Perrin & George Balzer; music & lyrics by Harry Revel & Arnold B. Horwitt) boasts some pleasant tunes, picture-pretty Joan Roberts from Oklahoma!, and enough young enthusiasm to keep it running for some time. The plot revolves around a meticulous young insurance actuary (Johnny Downs) who joins a traveling carnival. This combination should inspire some flights of insurance-company satire or some gay carnival horseplay; but neither keeps the show off the ground for very long.
The Secret Room (by Robert Turney) is the story of Leda Ferroni, a mental victim of Nazi torture, who goes—presumably cured—to live with an American family. Before the family catches on, she has turned the kids against their mother, planned a kidnapping, committed one murder, attempted a second. The play might have been a fascinating character study or a menacing yarn. But Leda is bungled and the story is a bore.
The Rich Full Life (by Vina Delmar) should be seen, if at all, when it becomes a rich, full movie. Right now, the matinee trade that comes to sniffle will remain to squirm.
The show tells of a full-blooded woman (excellently played by Judith Evelyn) worn down by marriage with a stuffy dullard, but determined that her teen-age daughter Cynthia shall have fun. Unfortunately, Cynthia is a sickly girl. When her dream boy invites her to a dance, although she has a cold and it's raining pitchforks, her life-loving mother lets her go.
Act III finds Cynthia a very, very sick girl—a juicy situation that Playwright Delmar seizes on with such intemperate pleasure that she loses her head and her grip on the show.