Howard Barnes' Theater Column in the Sunday Herald Tribune

In his Sunday Herald Tribune column, theater critic Howard Barnes urged Katharine Cornell to establish a repertory company. Cornell had recently revived Shaw's “Candida” to alternate with her “faltering” presentation of “Antigone,” which Barnes felt could provide a foundation for a repertory season. He decried the fact that while the city hosted visits from Ireland's Abbey Theater and England's Old Vic it had no repertory company of its own. The current production by Theater Incorporated of Shaw's “Pygmalion,” starring Gertrude Lawrence and Raymond Massey, was intended to kick off a series of revivals but had proven so popular that there would be no other show at the Ethel Barrymore this season.

Barnes agreed with his fellow critics that the current production of “Candida” was “no equal of the production which might have been seen a few years ago with Burgess Meredith in the Marchbanks role,” now being played by Marlon Brando, but he felt it was well worth seeing, as was the Jean Anouilh adaptation of Sophocles's “Antigone,” “which made history for a resistant France during the Nazi occupation.”

Barnes also wrote about “St. Louis Woman,” a show he said had solid ingredients but that had been let down by its cast. “The Nicholas Brothers dance expertly, but they do not match their fast stepping with persuasive acting. Ruby Hill is good-looking, but not particularly convincing in the chief feminine role and Juanita Hall merely muffs her torch numbers.” The few standouts in his opinion were in the lesser roles. “Pearl Bailey has an insouciant charm and a way with a song...particularly when she is intoning 'Legalize My Name.' ” Enid Williams “goes to town in the flashy cakewalk number which winds up the first act.” He bemoaned the fact that more of the “excellent Negro performers” had not been recruited for this “sepia musical.”

Barnes, who turned 42 in 1946, had been with the newspaper since 1928 and had taken over the job as chief critic from Richard Watts Jr. in 1942. He retired from the paper in 1951.