New Faces of 1952

In a few years, New Faces will be remembered only as the show that introduced Broadway to Eartha Kitt. And since Miss Kitt is sensational, that should be enough to guarantee the revue some sort of immortality. A dusky beauty, Miss Kitt is as feline as her name, sometimes playful, often with her claws showing. Her voice is equally unpredictable--a mellow huskiness which rises to a wail like fingernails on a blackboard. When she stalks on stage, it is not to win the favor of her audience. Instead, she toys languorously with her show-stopping song "Monotonous" and the result is electrifying.

But in New Faces producer Leonard Sillman presents more than a one-woman show. Like most revues it is spotty; but what is good is very good indeed.

Rubberfaced Ronny Graham, who wrote many of the sketches and songs, is almost consistently funny. After ridding himself of a tired bopster routine, he slides into his satires: sharp, clever jibes at Truman Capote, Arthur Miller, and Gian-Carlo Menotti. Musically, however, the top parody is Alice Ghostly's "Boston Beguine." In a baggy sweater and skirt, Miss Ghostly clatters about the stage in a primitive tango, screeching of her romance with a Harvard man in Boston's "native quarter." The fourth in a talented quarter is Robert Clary, a 14-ounce French import, who mugs through another bouncy tune, "I'm in Love With Miss Logan." Apparently ageless, Clary easily changes his school boy costume for white tie and tails to serenade oversized showgirls.

Other of the comics who give New Faces color are Paul Lynch with his Rotarian's account of lion-hunting in Africa and a "friend of the producer," Virginia DeLuce, who manhandles Clary and also introduces the skits in exaggerated Runyonese.

But there are several entries on the debit side. Too often the show sacrifices the cast's varied comedy talents to dull, sentimental numbers stuck in for change of pace. Because the tone of the revue is irrepressibly comic these interludes are rarely effective. "Nanty Puts Her Hair Up" and June Carroll's "Guess Who I Saw Today" are examples of numbers too delicate to survive their boisterous surrounding.

Evenwith these lags, New Faces is a bright, fast-paced production. Many of the new faces have the talent and personality to become nationally familiar. And in the case of Eartha Kitt, any delay is inexcusable.