The Theatre: Best Plays: Sorceress Meller

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Temperamentally offended by personal publicity, Raquel Meller has been the inspiration for much befuddled biography. It is, however, generally agreed that she was born in Saragossa, in Aragon, Spain, between 30 and 40 years ago. Some say that her parents were performers. She was taught to sew—at which art she went nearly blind once—and to sing Vespers in a convent, from which she escaped with the help of the gardener's ladder.

She was a young girl when she took her first engagement in a dingy Barcelona fishermen's cafe. She wandered from village to village, city to city, picking up the melodies that are woven through Spanish life. Her King heard of her and commanded a performance. She became the cardinal vocal artist of her country.

Six years ago she sang in Paris, later in London, Rome, South America. For more than three years, impresarios have been trying to lure her to the U.S. Broken contracts, excuses about fear of the sea, homesickness, personal ties intruded, and not until E. Ray Goetz, husband of Irene Bordoni, persuaded her, would she set sail— she and her three maids, eight dogs and 42 trunks in an entourage reminiscent of Sarah Bernhardt, who once heard her sing in private and told her she would some day be "as great as I think I am."

After four performances a week for four weeks (at $6,000 a performance) in Manhattan, she will visit, for a week each, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco. Once on the coast, she will probably make a cinema.

Meller has been married. Gomez Carillo, her husband, was a powerful South American journalist. Jealous of her success, he had her arrested and almost succeeded in having her detained in an asylum for alleged insanity. The Pope annulled their marriage. She pronounces her name May-aire, but Manhattanites say Meller.

New Plays

What Every Woman Knows. In the unfortunate scarcity of new plays by J. M. Barrie, the next best thing is a revival. We have not had a Barrie play since Mary Rose, and nobody seems to know at all when he will finish his next one. Nearly every Barrie revival runs the danger of being submerged by the lovable phantom of Maude Adams. This production was originally scheduled for Laurette Taylor and Godfrey Tearle, and was to be followed by The Admirable Crichton. It was offered to Grace George, who with remarkable insight suggested that the play would be most interesting if done by one of the new generation. Helen Hayes was consequently selected for the part, and probably made the greatest impression of her relatively brief career.

Barrie's Maggie in the play is supposed to be a woman without charm. The part must then be played by a woman of such infinite charm that she can triumph over unattractive dresses and other consequential detriments to the average woman's triumph. This Miss Hayes has done, and by so doing releases herself definitely from the (for her) ever present danger of being our brightest and best stage flapper.