One-Night Stand

Few actors ever have a chance to make an entrance that has been built-up for 40 years. In Manhattan one night last week George Bernard Shaw, playwright and actor, made such an entrance.

To heighten the effect he tried to deny himself on the day of the performance to the world's sharpest newshawks--the cameramen of New York Harbor--by shutting himself up in his suite on the world-cruising Empress of Britain. After registering becoming reluctance he emerged at last, only to lose composure when one of the hawks shouted the old cry, "Tell the old fool to turn around!" Shaw, outraged, seized the cameraman and shook him by the shoulders. Meantime other cameras clickety-clicked, including that of the smart Daily News (tabloid) man who had perched above for a hardboiled newshawk's-eye view. That day and the next, before he departed, Shaw was treated by the Press as he has taught the Press to treat him, as the Jimmy Walker of the intelligentsia.

Hired for Shaw's debut by the Academy of Political Science was the broad stage of the Metropolitan Opera House. All seats were filled, at a top price of $5, Shaw graciously waiving his fee. He stepped forth springily from the wings just before 8:30 p. m., apparently misinformed about the hour of the NBC broadcast, which was 8:45 p. m. He fussed with his beard, rustled his notes and twinkled professionally at Morgan Partner Thomas W. Lament and Banker Jackson Eli Reynolds, present to sponsor and introduce him. At length, when the radiomen, signalled ready and Banker Reynolds made the necessary gestures, the whiskery, long-shanked Irishman arose and began:

"Finding myself in an opera house with such a magnificent and responsive audience, I feel an irresistible temptation to sing. (Applause, applause.)

"But I am afraid, my unfortunate age precludes any performance of that kind." (Gales & gales of laughter.)

Shaw then proceeded to a disquisition, along orthodox Shavian lines, on political economy in the U. S. He talked for 100 minutes--40 minutes longer than expected --and some statistician counted his words at 16,345. Occasionally he was obliged to arouse his audience with such prods as: "I notice that you receive me coldly."

He said that the "100% American" of yesterday "who had no modern theory of society" had been supplanted by a new sort of citizen best typified by "Mr. Franklin Roosevelt . . . and my friend Randolph Hearst." The oldtime American was content with the U. S. Constitution as "a charter of anarchism," but Mr. Hearst and Mr. Roosevelt "are both violently against the Constitution."

He found the capitalist system in the U. S. broken down, the farmers "enslaved, bankrupt and in armed revolt." The country has been "run into the ditch" by financiers and bankers who are "95 percent lunatics." Under the same guidance, the U. S. had cornered the world gold supply and "broken the bank of England."

Next day aboard the S. S. Empress of Britain Mr. Shaw received a good-by kiss from the elderly daughter of the late

Henry George, his early idol. Said he of the Metropolitan Opera show: "I'm afraid I bungled it."

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