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at theNEW YORK THEATRESby Charles K. Freeman.BETTE DAVIS AND HER GANGThe rush of new openings that have plummeted into the Broadway arena has not dimmed thepopularity of TWO’S COMPANY.Word is around that there is a bright and generous extension of good things at the Alvin Theatre and that Miss Davis is now in better form than ever since her recent and successful bout with bronchitis.I paid a second visit to this lively revue and found Hiram Sherman as droll and shrewdly comic an interlocutor as ever. Not only is he skillfully engaged in bridging the various segments of the show with humorous introductory notes, but he is an apt performer when called upon to participate in a sketch or musical number. In a tuneful plaint of a man who has had his house built so w*ell and so modern that it is lost in the terrain about, he gets off the lyric and its comment on architecture of the Frank Lloyd Wright school with ingenuous, charm. He moves in and out of the revue acting its chief informer just as you would like him to be.* * *Miss Davis has a field day for herself in songs by Vernon Duke, lyrics by Ogden Nash and sketches by Charles Sherman. Nat Hiken. Billy Friedberg and a host of main-stern wits. She is a wonderful slattern in a sketch with David Burns called “Jealousy.” a garrulous Tallulah in a bit kidding herself and a patchwork costumed hag in a musical number cuffing the folk-wabblers from the hill country.The dancing chores have been entrusted to Jerome Robbins and he has conceived and brought to execution some upper-drawer con-, tributions to this revue. For the dancing patterns and stories they illustrate are sensitive in character and penetrating in their overall design. Using Nora Kaye and a score of good dancers he has choreographed satirical commentand touching remembrance with vibrant and heart-reaching effect.* * *In “Roundabout” he and Horton Foote have librettoed a poignant scenario to w'hich Vernon Duke and Ogden Nash have put nostalgic music and lyrics. Here Robbins uses song and dance movement with incisive thrust and sharply etched effect. Having Nora Kaye as his chief dancer, and knowing her ardent affection for the thoughtful in dance, he has come up with something that is plaintive and truly evocative. It is something that lingers long past the final curtain.Miss Kaye is fortunately not spared, for she appears, as well in a cartoon mime of the twenties, something called “Baby Couldn't Dance.” Here, again, she is shown the expert precisionist endowed with a winning and comic style. Comment on this fragment of the revue should include thanks to Buzz Miller who dances the boy and Barbara Heath and Florence Baum who are not only decorative but adroit and showy as dance pupils in the sketch. With the other members of the dancing ensemble Miss Kaye is put to good use in another mood piece called “Haunted Hot Spot.”1 * * *There is some high calibre buffoonery in David Burns' frank way about a sketch and wiaen he and Maria Karnilova get together with Buzz Miller in “Esther” there’s a lot to be grateful for. Esther is danced by Miss Karnilova, who like Miss Kaye, has w^orn out many a pair of ballet slippers dancing through the more important ballets. And as Esther, a girl easy with love in a climate that makes for ease, Karnilova proves herself a smooth and knowing actress. In this number, too. there is a group of rhythm “cats” w’ho are virtuosos of percussion. You’ll like all these things and the smartly designed production, and overall production.
Newspaper Details
Bronxville Reporter
Bronxville, New York, US
Thu, Feb 26, 1953
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
NA, 11 Jan 2023
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