Two's Company

When Bette Davis does the hula, it's a bit like watching your aunt get roaring drunk at a party. It's nice to see she has the spirit, but it's also a little embarrassing. The introduction to the new Miss Davis in the second scene of Two's Company is abrupt and somewhat painful. She manages her high kicks with admirable but all too obvious effort, and her rasping, often inaudible singing voice inspires vicarious throat-clearing in the audience.

Song and dance are clearly not Miss Davis' media. The producers should have recognized the limits of her considerable versatility and made better use of her appealing personality and skill as a comedienne. A revue, not a musical comedy, Two's Company might have starred Miss Davis in a number of comic sketches and wrapped the attractive package with the usual musical scenes. Instead, the show leans heavily on the fragile crutch of her singing talents.

The revue, however, has no alternate crutch in the writing of the sketches. Aimed at unimaginative targets, Charles Sherman's satire has a toothless bite. The dialogue in his picture of an inane cocktail party sounds like something Noel Coward might have written in prep school, while a second skit relies on that hoary staple of a dozen revues--the parody of famous playwrights' styles. Even the spectacle of Miss Davis as a hillbilly crone and a lethargic slattern in gym shoes can't offset a script which comes up with a little horror like Flying Saucers, featuring a trio of spacemen (Meissen, Delit, and Spode) wearing tea cups.

The only wit in the show lurks in the lyrics by Ogden Nash, and fortunately. Miss Davis recites rather than sings the best of them. The outrageous rhymester's lines are deft and often delightful, particularly when coupling words like respectable and "Toulouse Lantrectable." Nash's lyrics are set to pleasant music, though none of the tunes is likely to stick with you as far as the subway station. One which might is Roll Along Sadie, a lively number which suggests that Anita Loss might have been kinder to Sadie Thompson than Somerset Maugham.

With striking sets and lighting, Jerome Robbins' dance sequences are the most entertaining portion of the revue. Ballerina Nora Kaye is fascinating to watch, almost as much for the malevolence of her features as for the brilliance and grace of her dancing. Since Miss Kaye is one of the country's foremost interpretive dancers, however, it's inexplicable why Jerome Robbins has her call out lines like "I need you" in the middle of a rather pretentious ballet scene. Another highly gifted performer, Maria Karnilova is a torrid Latin in Esther, an energetic vulgarity which set two priests next to me muttering about sin on the American stage.

Reportedly, Joshua Logan and other play-doctors are labouring to quicken the pulse of the show. While there is promise in the announcement that Paul Hartman will ringmaster the revue in New York, a major operation on the script is necessary if more than curious interest in Miss Davis is to sustain Two's Company on Broadway.