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The Playgoer

At the Wilbur

In his latest theatrical venture, Edward Everett Horton has turned Casanova. If there is any one actor who is not the great lover type, it is he; but still, he handles the part with surprising adeptness and conviction. Although shot with the conventional misunderstandings and confusion of names which are all straightened out in the third act, it supplies a good deal of laughs from curtain to curtain. The dialogue is clever in spots, but the facial and vocal expressions of the star really bring down the house.

As the girl who desires "the decent thing" but shoots her husband because he brings his mistresses home to tea, Marjorie Lord Combines youthful beauty with more than adequate acting. Gordon Richards as Johnny Jelliwell and Barbara Brown as his seducible wife, are good enough backdrop for Horton's inimitable double-talk comedy. The show is well-polished from beginning to end and proceeds at a rapid clip. By such clever setting arrangements as substituting paintings of still life for those of nudes between the first two acts, more is said about Casanova's conversion to "the decent thing" than through dialogue. Horton is the whole show; and for a Horton admirer, it's a riot.

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