By The Beautiful Sea

In the early '40s, Ed Gardiner was the owner and star of a low-budget radio program called "Duffy's Tavern," and he employed his wife, Shirley Booth, to play the part of rasp-voiced Miss Duffy. The program and the marriage are no longer popular favorites; Gardiner decided to beat U.S. income takes in Puerto Rico, and Miss Booth returned to the stage.

As Lottic Gibson in By the Beautiful Sea, she offers the wonderful voice of her radio days, the same man hungry wistfulness, and a coarse good-humor. But a decade of plays like "Come Back, Little Sheba" and "Time of the Cuckoo" have toned down her performance, and a dimension of easy dignity takes her out of the realm of caricature. But when given half a chance Miss Booth is still very funny.

In By the Beautiful Sea, however, she is not given enough to do. As a result, memorable and magic though she is, Miss Booth almost has the show snatched away from her. Mae Barnes comes on stage to sing two of the show's best tunes, "Happy Habit" and "Hang Up," and she can't get off. If the Boston reception is an accurate barometer, lyricist Dorothy Fields better work out some original encores, because Miss Barnes is called back and back and back. Looking like an ample Earth Kitt, she throws her whole being and all her talent into the numbers and there is plenty of both. Miss Barnes starts, rather than stops, the show, for her two songs pace the production. When the rest of the material is as good, By the Beautiful Sea is top-notch. Too often, however, it is drably routine.

The plot is pleasant enough: something about a vaudeville singer in love with a Shakespearean actor in Coney Island at the turn of the century. Though Wilbur Evans as the actor does not always articulate clearly during the songs, he is genial and right for the part.

His ballads-and a catchy Arthur Schwartz tune called "Good Time Charlie" which Miss Booth doesn't sing either--make up the rest of the score. She is stuck with scraps and reprises and a chorus of "In the Good Old Summertime." She does have a minute to herself in the third scene when she dances with little Robert Jennings, but the enthusiasm of the audience goes unrewarded and the play plods forward without an encore. By cutting some of the dull subplot of ingenue Carol Leigh and dancer Ray Malone, the producers could add a raucous number to Miss Booth's vaudeville scene. She belted out such songs in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and another would brighten the second act.

Staging of the play is unique and imaginative, as audiences have come to expect from Jo Miclziner. He has produced a fun house, Ferris wheel, and the illusion of a rollercoaster--always in subdued colors which suggest Coney Island but are easy to watch. The dances, except when they are sparked by Maria Karnilova, seem included more as a bow to tradition than because they are fresh and worth performing.

With Misses Booth and Barnes, a couple of good songs, and a handsome production, it is unnecessary for the show to reach New York as only second-rate. Some careful clipping and adding here could produce a top musical.