The Theatre: New Plays in Manhattan: Oct. 6, 1930

Once In A Lifetime. Although George S. Kaufman has rarely written a play all by himself, he has brightened many a theatrical season with shows in whose making he collaborated (June Moon, Beggar on Horseback, Dulcy, Merton Of The Movies). With Moss Hart the whimsically insane Kaufman touch has surpassed itself in producing Once In A Lifetime, a merciless, hilariously funny lampoon on Hollywood and the cerebral content of its creatures. The only possible adverse criticism of the play might come from spectators for the near savagery of some of the blows which Mr. Kaufman deals to cinema folk with his relentless jester's bladder.

The story on which so much cyclonic satire is hung concerns a smalltime vaudeville team of which the smartest member is Jean Dixon (the acidic wife in June Moon). The least gifted member is Hugh O'Connell, a ludicrous gentleman who had the part of a half-drunk reporter in The Racket, a completely drunk reporter in Gentlemen of the Press. The first indication of Mr. O'Connell's competence appears when Miss Dixon asks him what he is reading. "Variety" he replies. "Why don't you read something written in English?" "Oh, it's in English," says Mr. O'Connell. "It's got theatrical news from all over the world, but it's written in English."

The team, almost broke, becomes fired with the idea that inasmuch as the infant film industry is just learning to talk, there ought to be money in an elocution school in Hollywood. Their subsequent adventures through the fantastic world that Messrs Kaufman & Hart have located on the West Coast are crowded with humor. Nowhere could Once In A Lifetime receive better appreciation than on the legitimate stage of Broadway where prestige and livelihoods have been jeopardized by the microphones and cameras of California. Once In A Lifetime is really Broadway's Revenge.

The more absurd the mistakes of Mr. O'Connell—who is made a production manager—become, the more remarkable his feats appear to the cinema people. At the final curtain, when Cinemagnate Glogauer learns that by some addle-pated order of Mr. O'Connell's a gang of workmen have come to tear the studio down, he hesitates for just a moment and then cries, "Tell them to go ahead!"

One might suppose that such a Swiftian critique of the motion picture business springs from an attack of cinematic sour grapes on the part of either Mr. Hart or Mr. Kaufman, who makes his first stage appearance in the part of a disappointed author. Actually, neither man has ever been to Hollywood. But each has spent 30 min. in a studio at Astoria. L. I.

Fine & Dandy. With due regard for the quality of Comedian Joe Cook's past performances, it may be safely said that Fine & Dandy is his grandest, maddest exhibition to date. Always a good hand at mechanical contraptions, this year he has placed himself in ideal surroundings—the

Fordyce Drop Forge & Tool Factory. His first appearaace is as a common workman—though later he becomes general manager—going to his job with his dinner pail. The dinner pail is the size of an automobile crate and it contains a hogshead of coffee. From this point on the audience is relieved of all sense of proportion and reason.