Theatre: New Show in Manhattan

• Share

The Blue Bird (S. Hurok, producer) is a medley of Russian vaudeville under the droll and genial mastership of Yascha Yushny. It is the sort of thing that moonfaced Nikita Balieff and Morris Gest first brought to the U. S. in 1922 as the Chauve-Souris and does not suffer greatly by this comparison. Mr. Yushny is much the same sort of master of ceremonies as Balieff. Witness the introduction he gives to a Boyar dance number, concluding with the sly information that he did the scenery for that act himself. When the curtain parts a plain velvet drop is revealed.

There is, inevitably, a not too artful rendition of the "Song of the Volga Boatmen," but what Mr. Balieff used to call "De Prade uf de Vooden Sojus" is happily omitted. Instead, there is a charming mechanical toy number, which Mr. Yushny has to wind up from time to time, called "Souvenir Lowere de Suisse." Miss Isa Kremer, a local Diseuse, appears to please audiences most with an astonishing repertory of songs, beginning with a French lullaby, skipping blithely through an Italian street ballad and an old English lyric to end up with the impersonation of a Kentucky mountain woman sewing as she sings. And although it has been knocking about the U. S. for the past winter, The Blue Bird's chief asset, exuberance, appears undiminished.