JOHN BARRYMORE

Evening Star, Issue 21090, 30 April 1932, Page 11

JOHN BARRYMORE

COMING TO REGENT IN * MAD GENIUS f Highest approval of John Barrymore in his marvellous characterisation of Tsarakov, mad genius of the Imperial Russian Ballet—and to Marian Marsh, seventeen-year-old screen discovery of the year—who is so exquisite as the dancer, Nana, has been given by audiences wherever ‘The Mad Genius,’ which will be released at the Regent Theatre on Friday, has been shown. Tsarakov, as portrayed by Mr Barrymore, is weirdly glamorous, sardonic, and always tragic, even in Ins moments of fleeting victory. Ho is a man embittered by a physical’deformity which makes it impossible for him to express himself in the dance—a passion for which he has inherited from his mother, Tsarakov is first, seen as master of a travelling marionette show. T}ie : manipulation of the puppets by means of the strings gives him vague gratification, for when the grotesque figures dance and the peasants applaud ho ini-! agines himself, young, perfectly formed, in some great opera-house of the world, exciting crowds frenzied with delight. One dark night, on to the crude stago of his show rushes a screaming lad, followed by bis drunken father who means to lash him. The boy eludes bis father and hides among the cluttered trappings. Suddenly Tsarakov has an inspiration. Ho will kidnap the boy, pour into him the fires he knows he himself possesses—make him the supreme dancer of nil time, and when his work is complete tho lad Fedor will not be really Fedor, but the divine Tsarakov I This Tsarakov finally succeeds in doing. He lives to see the youth the bright star of the Imperial Russian Ballet, of which he himself is now impresario. Tsarakov gloats over the idol of his own making, protects him from all that may dull his genius, even drives from tho chorus Nana, the little dancer whom Fedor loves. Whep the lad resents this and follows the girl, Tsarakov’s hate becomes as deadly as bis love had been. There follow many scenes of terrific power and tragic beauty before the climax, when a drug-crazed ballet master, thwarted by Tsarakov. becomes bis nemesis. Mr Barrymore’s portrayal of the role is quite beyond the power of words. It must be seen.