THEATRE CHRONICLE
171
worth noticing that in this musical there is a harmony of subject-matter
and style that our regular stage-writers cannot give us, that is, the idea
of the play, at least at the beginning, is that Venus, if she were to come
alive today, could not rouse the blood or even the attention of the
normal young man who is her true love; only the dissolute art connois–
seur has a cold, lubricious eye for her-she was better off as a statue.
This theme is rather lost sight of as the show progresses, but its relevance
to the authors' collective problem is apparent. The play in general loses
sight of its objectives. Perelman's humor is too frigid, too literary for
the stage, and Ogden Nash is unable to write a lyric or Kurt Weill a
tune which is as fresh, as unself-conscious, as
sui genen.is
as Mary Martin,
the star. Nevertheless, at its best,
i,n
its moments of self-laceration and
parody,
A Touch of Venus
is the most interesting production of the
season.
Ruth Gordon's play,
Over, Twenty-one,
deals with a character
lik~
Dorothy Parker who is married to a character like Ralph Ingersoll and
endures for his sake the trials of army life in Miami Beach to help him
get his commission. It is dull, rough stuff done in what appears to be
the atelier of George Kaufman; there is not the slightest respect paid to
character, on which comedy after all is founded: you create a church–
social kind of old lady and then, when you need a laugh, have her say,
"Damn" or "Hell"-anything goes. The most hilarious moments of the
evening are when Miss Gordon is locked outdoors in her panties, and
when the trays stick in the icebox while the colonel is paying a call.
Mr. Kaufman himself directed and contributed his usual touches: two
large irascible men stand facing each other, stage center, and yell insults
back and forth; this is supposed to be funny, and it is true that the
audience laughed. Miss Gordon is an accomplished but very mannered
actress who, in classic roles
(The Doll's House, The Country Wife),
gets wonderful contrapuntal effects by the impact of her style on the
author's style; with only her own material to work with, she seems
monotonous, though the sureness of her technique is a delight.
Winged Victory
is the show about the Air Force, written by Moss
Hart, and played by actual members of the service. The boys who have
not been too long in or too much affected by Hollywood are convincing
in their very lack of skill, and there are two or three good performances
which do not arise from technical inadequacy. The play, however, is
shocking in its false sweetness, its false democracy (sure there's room
for everybody in the Air Force and one man is as good as another, but
the Jewish boy from Brooklyn is only good for a laugh while the real
hero, the impeccable young pilot, is the son of a West Point man).
Some one has said of this play that it is the Rover Boys' version of the
war; this is accurate, and one cannot help imagining with embarrass–
ment, all through the performance, what the people of England, let
