The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 31

7 Grace George Returns to the Theater This Week in a New Comedy TREND: A SECTION OF THE BROOKLYN EAGLE, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1939 Playthings Backstage Monarch Maurice Evans May Play Prince Hamlet But Ada Nelligan Takes Care of the Whole Crowd at the 44th Street Theater Maurice Evans may play the title roles of the Shakespearean dramas he presents but the real backstage monarch of the 44th Street Theater is Ada Nelligan. Miss Nelligan is listed on the program as wardrobe mistress, but any member of the company will readily agree that this is a highly Inadequate description of her activi- ties. Does Mr. Evans desire a cup of tea during a performance of his entirety Then the preparation of this beverage Is entrusted to Miss Nelligan. Does any one in the company want a cup of coffee at any hour? All they have to do is to make their way to whatever dressing room has been assigned to the wardrobe department.

Does a member of the cast have a toothache or a cinder in the eye? The wardrobe department, In the person of Miss Nelligan, has the remedy. Or perhaps Mr. Evans does not feel like going out to dinner after a matinee. The wardrobe department always has an extra portion of roast chicken on hand for such emergencies, and it's not a property poulet. Only one who has toured with a large theatrical troupe can fully realize how important a part the contact with it through her sisters.

One, Bessie, was an original "Follies" girl. The other, Dona, followed in her mother's footsteps, and in about 1915 was wardrobe woman for "The Kiss Burglar," starring Fay Balnter. She became ill and 'Ada took over the show. She's been at it ever since, handling a long procession of Winter Garden Pacing Shows and various Al Jolson and Eddie Dowling productions. It was Dowling who sent her to Evars when he began producing Independently with "Richard II." Long ago she relinquished all interest in the acting department of the theater although she could play a role in an emergency.

Her mother once stepped into the lead of a play called "Home Folks" out in Chicago, facing the footlights In the company of William Hart 'and Thomas Ince, wardrobe mistress plays in keeping but Ada has forsworn the acting craft for three decades. She's had her chances, tjiough. They once wanted her to understudy Marie Dressier at the Winter Garden, and only last eeascai Mr. Evans asked up the morale and cheerful spirits of a company. Given a carping old termagant In the wardrobe department, and the dove of peace looks for the nearest exit.

In short order, every one gets on every one else's her to play Mistress Quickly in Paul Oiborn Writes a Ploy, 'Mornings At Seven as If for His Own Pleasure Angna Enters and Her Theater By ARTHUR POLLOCK Paul Osborn, who made an unconventional and entertaining play out of a little boy, an old man and death last season, has now made another comedy, unconventional again and also entertaining, out of a group of old people. Mr. Osborn is apparently an Independent Jellow who cares little for matters of expediency, for any playwright who wants to do something In the vogue and get himself a hit knows that plays about old ladles and gentlemen are not considered smart nor are they likely to be popular. He doesn't care. He Just sits him down and writes a good play.

At the Longacre Theater his "Mornings at Seven" is a pleasing comedy. The dramatist has not even bothered to cut his characters so that they fit today instead of yesterday, to give them problems to solve that result from the difficulties of living in a world chasing Its tail. Instead, his characters are the people of yesterday, today and tomorrow, Just people. They have problems, but they are the problems that arise from being alive, the little problems that are enormous, the problems that never change no matter who Is President nor what the state of affairs around the corner or In Cleveland or In Europe. His play concerns two families whose houses adjoin one another, two families that mingle In their backyards, know each other's business.

In one lives a man of 50 or 60 and his wife and his wife's sister and they are visited by a third sister whose husband thinks ftiem and their neighbors bores. In the other a man has "spells" brought on by a consciousness that he amounts to nothing In the world he wanted to be a dentist and became instead a builder lives with his wife and their son, a lad of 40. The play is about these people. The lad of 40 Js bringing home to dinner for the first time the girl he has been keeping company with for something like 11 years. Will he have gumption enough to marry her at hut? What will mother and father and the family next door think of her? Ought this tender bird bo so daring as to leave the nest? That, too, Is what the play is about.

The spinster, who lives with her sister and brother-in-law, Is upset because she discovers that her sister, after a long married life, wanted at last to buy a house and live in It alone with her husband. That will let the spinster sister out. What will she do? The situation is complicated by the fact that for years she has loved her brother-in-law. Once they almost had an affair. That is what "iftornings at Seven" is about.

No Label Not much, you see. But these are nice people. Not very bright but, like everybody else In the world, human. They never do anything exciting, yet everything they do Interests you as you look on. For them the things that happen are almost melodramatic.

For us they are amusing, sometimes pathetic. They are gentle folk, and Mr. Osborn treats them with a fine tenderness in spite of the fact that he lets us laugh at them. He lets us laugh very often, with them and at them, always with a kindly laughter. There were people present on the opening night who seemed to wish "Mornings at Seven" were either funnier or more realistic, not being able to decide whether the author meant his characters to be laughed at or whether the laughter was, so far as he was concerned, accidental.

In other words, they wished "Mornings at Seven" was easier to classify. As if the author cared. His characters are people nd people are both comic and tragic. When he wrote his play he wasn't interested In putting labels on these old friends of his. Leaving labels off is not the easiest way to make money In the theater, but that is why he likes It.

At the moment, anyhow. Actress Angna Enters is presenting again at the Alvln Theater what she calls aptly the Theater of Angna Enters. Hers is a true theater In which are many characters with as many dissimilar natures, all of which live their brief time upon the stage In her person, coming to life In the movements of her body, her hands, her arms, the changes that come over her face and her spirit. There is In the theaters of the country no better actress than this one actress of the Theater of Angna Enters, none so complete, none so sure, none so lucid. I don't know what Angna Enters would do with words.

At any rate she needs none. Other actresses have the words of dramatists to wrap around them, to hide In, to bring them to blossom. They nerves. But such is not the case with La Nelligan, who is noted for the amicable relations she establishes' with the players. The secret of her success may lie in the fact that she once appeared before the footlights, and that she comes from something of a theatrical family herself.

Her mother was a wardrobe woman before her, long associated with the Frohmans and other leading theatrical managements of her day. As a child Ada began her association with the theater by playing the role of a circus girl in "The White Tigress of Japan" at the American Theater on 42d St. She also appeared in several other shows, Including a road tour of "Fantana" with Julia Sanderson. In this venture she was a "Henry IV." Miss Nelligan declares she loves actors, and Is particularly fond of her present isnployer. Long ago she dubbed hiai "The King," a backstage nickname which only she uses in the second; person.

Only on one occasion has there been the slightest difference of opinion between her and Mr. lEvans. During the run of at the St. James, her workshop wevs in the basement of the theater. As usual, Miss Nelligan had the cufee pot as well as the sewing machine plugged in.

When Mr. Evans. Jumped into Ophelia's grave, he iound himself somewhat distracted by the strong odor of coffee emerging from the lower regions of the theater. He finally compromised with her. She continued making coif fee for the company, but on matinee days added tea to the chorus girl.

In 1910 she married and retired from the theater, but remained In; menu. Hayley Bell and Graea George, who will be teen in "Billy Draw a Hone," opening next Thursdoy evening at the Playhouse Like Grandfather; He Heard Her on the Air Lenore Lonergan, Granddaughter of Lester Lonergon, Represents Third Generation of the Family in 'Philadelphia Story' So Now She's His Hit, 'Very Warm for May' certs In the West. The Marx Brothers auditioned her for an air program, which was heard by Columbia Broadcasting officials in New York. The result was a contract, and she has since been heard with platform In the West and aubse-quently met the composer. An audition was promptly arranged and Max Gordon, equally impressed, signed her for the role she now has in "Very Warm for May," her first In the Broadway theater.

A native of Fresno, Miss Shaw took a special course in music at Pomona College and soon thereafter made her bow with success In con- mersteln, librettist, "is a girl with a remarkable voice. I wonder who she Is." Kern communicated by telephone to the New York office of the broadcasting station, learned the identity of the singer and forthwith wrote her to visit him if perchance she came to California. Miss Shaw, by a coincidence, was leaving a fortnight later to appear on the concert "Like father, like son" Is an age-worn adage in the theater. "Like grandfather, like granddaughter" is something else again. However, you may leave it to the Lonergan clan to come through with Radio Brought Mr.

4 Kern the Voice Of Hollace Shaw Lady Luck and the radio have been unduly kind to Hollace Shaw, who is singing Jerome Kern't newest song, "All the Things You Are," In "Very Warm for May" at the Alvin "IJieater. It all began some months ago, when the youthful singer left her California home to sing with Mark Warnow on the radio. Kern, In his Beverly Hills home at the time, was occupied with writing the score for when th entire family was appearing on 'Broadway at the same time. Father was, paradoxically enough, giving his all in a play called "Mother," while wife, daughter and son a re to be seen In a debacle entitled "'Crime Marches On." Though Lenoix Is the only one busily engaged on the stage at present, she more than makes up for the absence Lelth Stevens and the unusual. This time It's 11-year Raymond Page, In a series of radio Lenore.

eranddauahter of the Mark Warnow concerts. famous Lester Lonergan, who is re- Reception Tuesday for Dramatic Workshop Complete plans of the Dramatic year professional training course rn mi invited to sina with I pnnclklA fr AAatrn Ms 9 AnH frrtnH Toscanlni. She was so frightened for designed to Driage ine gap oetween Workshop of the New School The New Plays when she got to the studio she could old Adage No. 2 pops up with a i of the rest of her kinfold, since the hardly open her mouth. The great prodigious propensity in young 'role of Dinah contains 33 "sides" academic education and a professional career in the theater, according to Director Piscator, an inter- Social Research which will get underway Jan.

IS will be made public conductor, however, beamed wn Whore's case at the Shubert The- "Very Warm for May." His wife, in upon her and patted her reassur- by Erwin Piscator, director of the I national figure In the commercial ater, where she is playing the role inirlv on the back. Her nervousness theater. It is Intended for a limited number of students who are sen- Workshop, at a reception In the school building Tuesday afternoon, another room, tuned in on a radio program. The voice that came over the air waves thrilled the veteran composer, "There," said Kern to Oscar Ham- the average leading role In a Broadway production. To the surprise of no one, there are many school children who envy Lenore her stage career.

They are of the opinion that It Is all glamour. soon disappeared, and she later won of the precocious Dinah Lord In his personal congratulations for the Philip Barry's comedy The Phila- Dec. 18, at 5 o'clock. ously Interested in the theater as a way she sang. Idelphia Story." The Dramatic Workshop Is a two- craft i i i Needless to say, the name of Lonergan is synonymous with Broadway and the theater.

Lenore, de Monday "Steel," a play by Harold Igo, at the Provlncetown Theater. Presented by the Producers Theater, Inc. In the cast art Ad Karns, Donald DeFore, Priscllla Jamison, Paul Rohman and Evelyn Evers. Wednesday "Once Upon a Time," by LawTence Joseph Dugan. At Labor Stage.

In the cast are Miriam Stone, Robert Busch, Charles Powers, Johnny Lynn, Leslie Oorall, John Foster and Perry Bruskin. Thursday Billy Draws a Horse," by Lesley Storm, at the Playhouse. The cast Includes Orace George, Arthur Margetson, Lumsden Hare, Hayley Bell, Douglas Walton, Leo Bulgakov, Harry Plimmer, Elizabeth Inglis and Florence Edney. Benefit "The Streets of Paris" gives a special performance tonight at the Broadhurst Theater for the Actors' Fund. spite her tender age, Is carrying on for the third generation.

Her grandfather was a famous actor for almost 50 years. During his exciting lifetime he appeared with the greats of the dav Modjeska, Sothern, Mar But Lenore has other Ideas on that subject. She was born In Toledo, Ohio, where her father was directing the local stock company. At the age of 5 she was "dubbing" sound Into educational shorts. At the age of 6 she was taking singing and dancing lessons.

Since that time grass has not been permitted to grow under her feet, for she has made numerous stage appearances and played In two motion pictures with Noel Coward In "The Scoundrel" and with Cliff Edwards In "Take a Chance." But Lenore has been made to realize that she will not always be able to appear in children's roles that she must fit herself for the time when she blossoms to Ingenue roles. As a result, her off hourt from "The Philadelphia Story" are pretty well filled up. She still con lowe, Drew and Arnold Daly, among others. His reputation seeped into every nook and corner of the country. The hinterlands admired him as much as did Broadway.

Lenore's father, too, has followed the stage and bears the distinction of not only being the son of an actor but the father of an actress and an actor. Lenore has a brother, Lester Lonergan III, three years her senior, who has appeared In numer-! do not need to say so much as she, since another says what is to be said for them. And sometimes they do not say what the author means them to say, making what he created merely themselves, substituting for It their own never varying personalities, often extremely stolid, Inexpressive personalities but nice. Angna Enters cannot let herself off so easy. Every movement she makes has to speak.

It is a language of which most actresses know nothing. And the doesn't bother to be Invariably nice, for she has a mind. She speaks in pantomime, the simplest, most succinct pantomime. She comes on the stage, remains a few minutes and when the't gone again you have had an important experience. Something has happened to her, something has happened to you, something you are not likely to forget in a long time.

You have been introduced to a stranger, a stranger you know at once, have always known, and yet a stranger. It's quite wonderful. tinues her dancintr and music lpsxrmit ous Broadway plays. Including and wouid to btvme premiere 'Wednesday's Child," "Bachelor ballerina. Bom," "Goodbye Again," "Crime Marches On" and "The Good cA, fLa K-'.

I 4 i iff -4 'ii'A I 4 9aKyMiX ulim I -t- i Lester Lonergan Jr. e's father haH nrlplnallv HwWM tn he- Nathan Goldberg and Jacob come a barrister and was studying Jftcobs' who appearing In at Stanford University when he was "Dangerous Age," current weekend offered a role with a San Francisco play at the Parkway Theater, have tock company. There's a campus 'begun rehearsals for a new Yiddish Tr musical comedy, called "A Night In in such haste he still holds the mile the Country." which is scheduled to obstacle race record. That decision. Yiddish Actress Signed Annie Lillian, Jewish stage actress, has been signed for a leading role in "Girl Wanted," weekend Yiddish musical production In which Irving Grossman, Diana Goldberg and Simon Wolf are being co-starred at the Hopklnson Theater In Brooklyn.

Miss Lillian Joins the cast tonight. She will play the part vacated recently by Florence Weiss, who left Extra Matinee B. O. DeSylva announces an extra matinee on New Year's Day, Monday, Jan. 1, for his hit, "Du-Bsrry Was a Lady," playing at the 48th Street Theateer starring Bert Lahr, Ethel Merman, Betty Qrable, Benny Baker and many others in this show with music and lyrics by Cole Porter.

This meant three matinees that week on Monday, 'Wednesday and Saturday. made in approximately one-millionth there on Christmas eve. The of a second, probably saved the new production will then follow Lonergan clan from oblivion, for he -Dangerous Age" as the feature of- as the only member of the family, besides his father. Interested enough the theater to make a co of It. fering for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The cast, headed by Rosa The grand peak of the Lonergnn Betty Jacobs and Max ths musical to flU a motion picture, A nt fhtot UfttH w))0 iv ol the i.on at the AMn Theater tonight, adding twe ntw Humbert te her J.rhBd four vea- assi8nmenU I and repeating those tk, gov for the f.rit time lait Sunday evening. reaclled Jfars.