New Revue in Manhattan

Two's Company (music & lyrics by Vernon Duke & Ogden Nash; sketches by Charles Sherman & Peter De Vries) brought Bette Davis back to Broadway after some 20 years in Hollywood. But even with her return to the stage marking her first real fling as a comic, it all proved more an occasion than an event. Though Two's Company is not up to sound revue standards, it would very likely prove a satisfying evening if Actress Davis were up to her role. She struggles valiantly, but a big-time revue is too new to her, and comedy doesn't come natural.

She is on the stage a lot: she is Sadie Thompson, she is Tallulah cavorting at Bette Davis show, she is a hillbilly singer on TV, a straight singer of musicomedy songs, the slavey wife of a jealous, roughneck husband. She is not at all a dead weight: she knows how to command attention. But it's all a little like watching someone stay on a horse rather than perform as a rider; also a little as if two famous actresses were exchanging roles, and that, to complete the joke, Ethel Merman should turn up as Hedda Gabler. With Bette Davis not pacing the show, Two's Company alternately spurts and slumps. There are such pleasant-enough Vernon Duke tunes as It Just Occurred to Me --though it could have occurred to a good many composers. There are a number of skits with promising ideas, but few that are even reasonably funny. Dave Burns is an enjoyable comic, and Hiram Sherman--even without good material--an ingratiating commentator. Most notably, Jerome Robbins has worked out some attractive dances and ballets, and Ballerina Nora Kaye contributes some attractive dancing. But somehow all these names don't add up to very much news.

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