Theatre Topics

"Kismet", the charles Lederer musical, opened last night at the Ziegfield with Alfred Drake, Doretta Morrow, and Joan Diener. The opinion of the local man is elsewhere on the page.

One of the established entertainment choices along Shubert Alley is Samuel Taylor's "Sabrina Fair." Margaret Sullavan has a chance to skitter about the stage while Joseph cotten scutters after her. the problem, something about a chauffeur's daughter with Parisian ideas, is amusingly worked out at the National.

"From Here to Eternity" showed off a lot of Deberah Kerr. "Tea and Sympathy" shows her acting talents, which also have frequently gone unnoticed. The play, by Robert Anderson, is delicately written and directed. At the Barrymore.

Victor Borge, stumbling over his piano bench and in all looking like a drunken Viking, is singlehandedly giving the funniest show on Broadway at the Golden.

"Can-Can" has brilliant choreography and some of Mielziner's finest sets, but it doesn't quite jell. Cole Porter's songs seem properly spirited yet they are far from his best.

East and West are pleasantly entwined at the Martin Book in "The Tea House of the August Moon." David Wayne is oriental and John Forsythe upholds the occident.

Slipping down for a minute into the second-rate, Mary Martin and Charles Boyer are dazzing audiences with smiles alone, since Norman Krasna's script is no help at all. Micizner and Main Bocher to add to the flashy effect, however. At the Alvin.

"Picnic," a technical triumph by playwright William Inge, sometimes swaps precision for honest emotion, but the production, with excellent acting by Janice Rule and Ralph Meeker, is uniformly effective.

A somewhat sloppy Valentina is Rodgers and Hammerstein's eulogy of the theatre, "Me and Juliet." The show has its hits, but it also has songs like "The Big, Black Giant," which can only detract from the composers' reputation. Joan McCracken makes the whole business worth the splashy effect.

"Wonderful Town," universally acclaimed as wonderful, has wonderful Rosalind Russell singing Leonard Bernstein's bumpy, original melodies. Edith Adams makes an attractive, on-time sidekick as Eileen.

"South Pacific," another R & H musical, can't be stopped and no one's even trying. Audiences are still looking for Bali Hai on the stage of the Broadway theatre. Most of them are finding it.

"The King and I," also written by you-know-who, is a handsomely staged pageant, which needs no further introduction. Yul Brynner and Constance Carpenter are the king and I respectively. At the St. James.

"The Solid Gold Cadillac" isn't quite the vehicle Josephine Hull deserves. But it gets her back on the stage and that's quite good enough. George S. Kaufman and Howard Telchmann must take the blame for a script that bows too often to farce and bypasses satire.

Jose ferrer, at the City Center, is persecuted this week by Judith Evelyn in "The Shrike." Beginning Sunday he is persecuted as Richard III. It couldn't happen to a better actor.

If you like a spot of murder, you might try "Dial 'M' for Murder." An English thriller about a monogamist with one wife too many, the play stars Maurice Evans. At the Plymouth.