Theatre First Night

OPENED LAST NIGHT: At the Zlegfield, Charles Lederer's "Kismet", with music by Aleksandr Borodin and starring Alfred Drake, Joan Diener, Doretts Morrow, Henry Calvin, and Glenn Burris. For the benefit of theatre-goers deprived of critleal manna, the CRIMSON reprints a review of the musical as it appeared during the Boston try-out in late October. Our critic can not, of course, evaluate subscquent changes in the script or quality of the production.

Boston, Oct. 24

Aleksandr Boredin's first musical since Prince igor hit the boards in 1890 is an entertaining show, in spite of some remarkably shoddy ingredients. Unlike igor, Kismet's big assist comes from Minsky rather than Rimsky. With a vigorous cootch dance, bare-tummied slave girls paraded "for sale or for rent," and a number of jokes like, "CAll me in the harom; I'll be lying down there," Kismet is often indistringuishable from Harem Nights at the Old Howard. Further debits are abominable lyrics ("We'll coo adien without undue ado"), a script short on humor of any kind, and except for a rather striking bridal procession, elementary and often drab settings by Lemuel Ayers.

What raises Kismot above the standard of an old Maria Montez movie are the engaging performances of a cast which refuses to take any of the show's claptrap seriously. Well-rehearsed after a WEst Coast run of two months, the company gambols through Kismot with good-natured case. Even the gauze-pantalooned houris in the chorus seem pleasantly aware of how silly they look and make the bad moments of the show so hilariously poor that you can't complain. On the other hand, thanks primarily to Alfred Drake, Kismet's good moments are very enjoyable indeed. In Otis Skinner's old role of the resourceful beggar who marries off his daughter to the Caliph, drake is even more personable than he was in Kiss Me Kate. Drake is onstage almost continuously,a nd his jaunty gusto as he revels in the foolishness of the script sets the tone and pace of the whole production. With a sturdy baritone and superb diction, Drake gives his songs far better treatment than they deserve, projecting all to clearly some atrocities in the lyries, but making a number like "Gesticulate" seem quite imaginative.

With the exception of Glenn Burris, the Caliph, the other performers match Drake's buoyancy very well. Henry Calvin plays the Wazir of Police with a cheerful ghoulishness reminiscent of Fan court's Mikado. In "Was I Wazir," with an accompaniment wesely lifted from Wonderful Town rather than in Central Asia, Calvin has one of the best bits in the show. Joan diener, as the Wazir's errant wife, is sultry and sarcastic, with a figure to please even the most myopic in the second balcony. With comic relish, she joins Drake in the slaughter of a little horrer called "Oasis of Delightful Imaginings." ("The breeze that cools the dunes there has an opposite effect on the pantaloons there."). Doretta Morrow is piquant as Kismet's sole ingenue, particularly in "Stranger in Paradise," the most successful hybrid of Borodin and tin Pan Alley.

Though far less fortunate than the plunder of Grieg a few years back, the raid on Borodin produces a few trophies. AT worst, there are atmospheric inter-Iudes of Hollywood Baghdad music, which permit the "Princesses of Ababu" to cavort around a palace pool obviously built in manual training class. At best, there are agreeable melodies with out-rageous lyrics, and two lively numbers, "He's In Love" and the first act finalo. In any case, the music helps Kismet to whirl with amiable vulgarity through thirteen scenes, and the New York businessman will probably find the show a godsend for entertaining a Big Account.