THE PLAYGOER

Lawrence Schwab presented "Nice Goin'" at the Shubert Monday night. Between yawns, the audience wondered when the highly touted Miss Mary Martin would appear. At last, after two interminable scenes, Miss Martin finally entered, all-shining in a golden gown. She then proceeded to sing a song nobody could understand, and the audience never recovered from the shock.

Prior to this catastrophe, Bert Wheeler bet his watch with a guy that Lee Dixon, premier lover of the U. S. fleet, could garner a garter from Miss Martin, premiere iceberg of the Republic of Panama. In the meantime, Miss Martin has fallen for her hero, and he for her, but when she learns of the wager, she calls the affair off until the final curtain.

It may be indiscreet to carp at the plot of a musical comedy, but it is nothing short of a criminal offense for the authors of a show, in this case Messrs. Nicholson and Robinson, to deprive a trouper like Bert Wheeler of even the smallest semblance of a comic line. In fact, throughout the whole show there is a singular lack of hilarity.

Among the principals, Pert Kelton creates a slight hiatus with her renditions of "Stick to Your Arithmetic" and "I Was Afraid of That"; if you shut your eyes, Mr. Dixon's voice and tapping is entertaining--but these two score against very mediocre competition. Miss Martin is torrid only when she is coy, but her part herein demands that she be frigid, and hence her occasional attempts at coyness only serve to make her appear ridiculously childish. Furthermore, she has no song suited to either her voice or her personality, and she looks ill and overworked.

Acting honors, such as they are, must go to the lesser members of the cast. A girl named Carol Bruce deserves a far better part than she has, and Tom Ewell, late of "Brother Rat," is easily the best man on the stage. The chorus is gorgeous to look at, and the girls do more than well by Al White, Jr.'s rather unimaginative routines. Harry Horner's sets are excellent, but they meet strong antagonists in Billi Livingston's atrocious costumes.

Two of Ralph Rainger's and Leo Robin's songs are tuneful--"The Wind in My Window" and I've Gone Off the Deep End." Incidentally, there is a team of six young ladies who call themselves "Las Chiquitas" and look like something the management discovered in the railroad station at New Haven.

With the exception of the opening scene in the second act, in which Jack Cole and His Dancers turn in an expert and hair-raising number, the present offering at the Shubert dies a lingering and painful death. It seems strange a man of such high standing in the theatre as Mr. Schwab could have become associated with "Nice Goin'"

P. S. Now the show will probably run into the millenium.