New Play in Manhattan

Noah (by Andre Obey; Jerome Mayer, producer). Playwright Obey begins this naive fable with the First Navigator banging the last few nails into the Ark with his stone hammer. His dowdy beard hangs in ringlets. His hoary eyebrows are the size of mustaches. And a wild mop of grey hair tops the benign face of an Irish comedian. Neither the tippler of legend nor the inflexible patriarch of the Bible, Noah's Noah is the simplest of men, worried about his mission but uncomfortably embarrassed each time he has to bother God for further instructions. Full of faith, he needs it all when, with his wife, three sons, three orphaned maidens and the animal kingdom, he sets out upon the mighty, storm-tossed waters.

A near-mutiny is averted only by the sun's timely appearance. "This," proclaims Noah as the youngsters dance about him, "is the Golden Age. This is the FIRST DAY!" But darkling, doubtful Ham is not satisfied. What day is it, he wants to know. Is it Monday? Wednesday? Sunday? As close as he ever permits himself to come to impatience, Noah protests against this infernal nagging of him and God over trivial questions. Such inquisitiveness is bound to annoy the Creator. "You can't expect Him to be a saint, you know," he tells his only confidants, the animals.

But Ham, Shem, Japheth and the girls prove irredeemably wayward, human. By the time his craft comes to a perch atop Mount Ararat, Noah has even lost confidence in his distressed, slightly balmy wife. The children desert him, the animals turn savage, and poor old Noah is left sad, infirm, alone. He does not think he has quite deserved all his troubles. He doubts if their imposition has been quite "sporting" of God. But there is just one thing he wants to know. He lifts his shaggy face to heaven. "Are you satisfied?" he calls. "Are you satisfied?" And again, "ARE YOU SATISFIED?" A fine big rainbow pops out of the sky. "Then." quietly says old Noah, "I am satisfied."

Unhackneyed, humorous and at times downright noble, Playwright Obey's Noah should tickle sophisticates with its whimsicality, should bring temporary comfort to those involved in life's complexities, should cause sheer delight to the pure in heart. First produced in French in Paris, Noah has the same sort of appeal as The Green Pastures. But it is clearly a product from the banks of the Seine, not the Mississippi, could not possibly be taken as an imitation.

Ludwig Bemelmans, who decorated his own Hapsburg restaurant in Manhattan and writes and illustrates children's books, has furnished colorful, charming, completely fitting scenery for Noah. Some wild, reedy snatches of music by Louis Horst are effective. But without Pierre Fresnay's superb impersonation of Noah himself, the fantasy would collapse.

Actor Fresney was also Noah in the French version, but anyone who saw him in Noel Coward's froufrou Conversation Piece, is no longer impressed by his flawless English. What is impressive is the commanding range of humor and humility, the acute sense of timing, the rich, full-stopped voice which Actor Fresney has for years been displaying to French audiences.

Aged 41. He was playing with the Comedie Franc,aise when the War came. After four years' service as an infantry officer, he returned to the stage, was made a life member in the Comedie. Irked by that august organization's politics, he found in 1926 that it was harder to get out than to get in. He bought himself free with a 200,000-franc settlement. His record: more appearances in de Musset than any other actor.

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