RETURN OF ROMANCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21698, 13 January 1934, Page 10 (Supplement)

RETURN OF ROMANCE

FILM AND STAGE TREND MANY "• COSTUME " PIECES Romance and sentiment are back for a time on stage and screen, remarks an American critic. How long they may remain is questionable, for realism has a firm hold on the dramatists of the world. But for the moment beauty is paramount, and ugliness is in the background in the entertainments of America and of England. A few seasons ago the very wonis "costume play" were enough to send a producing manager of pictures or plavs into spasms of terror, for fear some "jinn" might hear them and force him to produce something aside from the sordid gangster or prison stories with which screens and stages were filled. Now this is different. In New York there are a number of romantic plays, and others in which sentiment is uppermost. Ana in Hollywood costume stories are being made in every studio, or are already turned out. There is difficulty in finding a reason for the change. It must have been felt psychically, and its coming has been gradual. Little things may have helped. Walt Disney's "Silly Symphonies" in colour —"Lullaby Land, "Santa Claus," "King Cole," "The Three Little Pigs"—may have helped, for they are pure sentiment. Eva Le Gallienne's brave gesture in 'producing "Alice in Wonderland," and her fino production of "Romeo and Juliet" have helped. Katharine Cornell's success in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" had a good deal to do with the change of attitude, and last year her exquisite production of "Lucrece" added fuel to the growing desire for romance. Both of these women are touring AmericS this year, carrying the message of beauty to the people west of 000000000000000000000000000

New York. And Walter Hampden, playing in the classics, "Hamlet, "Cvraino de Bergerac," "Buy Bias" and "Caponsacchi," has given further impetus to tho return of romance and sentiment. Other plays in New York that have romance and sentiment for their principal appeal include Eugene Gladstone O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness," a departure for O'Neill from his usual tragic formula. This comedy is built 011 sentiment, the affection of a father for his son who is going through his first love affair. Then there is "Tho Pursuit of Happiness," which goes back to Puritan days in New England and is a costume piece.

In London the craze for romance and costume plays is even more pronounced. Shakespeare is a character in "This Side Idolatry"; "Th« Brontes" is a period play; "Richard of Bordeaux." a real success that han run more than a year and is still going,, is set in the 14th century; "The Tudor Wench" is about the girlhood of Queen Elizabeth, and "Tho Rose Without a Thorn" has to do with Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour Ashley Duke's "The Man With the Load of Mischief," dealing with the Georgian period, is another of the London successes, and "Night's Candles," in which the San Fran-cisco-born Ernest Milton starred, is concerned with the Medici of Florence. London, too. has a sudden love for Shakespeare. Charles Laughton and a group of the finest actors in the British capital have given up their important salaries to bolster the works of the Bard of Avon at tho Old Vic and the Sadler's Wells theatres. Other pictures, already shown or in the making, that are purely costume and romantic, include " Little Women," which stars Katharine Hepburn as Jo March; Greta Garbo in "Queen Christina." a Swedish- ruler of two centuries ago; Marlene Dietrich in "Catherine the Great"; George Arliss in "Tho House of Rothschild ; "Alice in Wonderland," which is pure fantasy, as is "The Wizard of Oz," which is coming along presently. And for sentiment, two recent examples are S "Lady For a Day ,; and "Only Yesterday."