"The Leading Lady"

Judging by the new play at the Copley this week, Ruth Gordon, the actress, should get herself a new playwright. And, at the same time, Ruth Gordon, the playwright, should put away her copy of Arthur Wing Pinero or Henry Arthur Jones and accept the report that Belasco is dead. "The Leading Lady," the play involving the two Miss Gordons (both of whom are married to the play's director--which suggests a dilemma more interesting than the current play) is an unreal bit of pink fluff that might be found floating about in the mind of some stage-struck school girl, no where else.

Miss Gordon opens her pretty little box in the year 1899 and reveals the rest of her collection of dolls. They area group of elegantly clad New Yorkers, sitting around sipping wine at the fashionable residence of the celebrated acting couple, Gerald and Gay Marriott, on West 27th Street. As they are very witty and biting in their speech, it is apparent that they are contemporaries of Oscar Wilde. The talk is about their hosts who have just opened in a new play. One particularly saucy young man tells how Gay (Miss Gordon) was "discovered" by Gerald, already an established star, when she was a chamber-maid at the Palmer House. (A titter is heard around the stage at that remark which manages somehow to spread out into the audience: perhaps the playwright has not misjudged the audience after all.) Nevertheless, the young man continues, everyone loves Gay and just hates Gerald because he is so mean to her and is, in addition, a terrible ham.

For about the first ten or fifteen minutes this chitchat goes on: "Isn't Gay wonderful?" "Wonderful!! She's the most enchanting, bewitching creature . . . I've already proposed six times. . . etc." By this time, a suspicion has arisen that this isn't going to be a play at all, but that Miss Gordon has attempted to write a tour do force for herself. This is confirmed when the leading man dies at the end of the first act.

Writing a tour de force for the theater is in many ways a more difficult job than merely writing a play, a task Miss Gordon has twice before proved she could do. It requires both daring and discretion; the knowledge of one's boundaries is essential for its success. But most of all, the playwright needs an icon with more general appeal than Miss Gordon. She is a fine actress, very feminine and tender. She has a funny little was of running up the musical scale when she speaks, letting her voice crack, gently, half the way up. But as the great and brilliant actress who can't "go on" when her acting-mate dies, Miss Gordon is as incredible and uninteresting as the plays she wrote.