New York Times drama critic Lewis Nichols reviewed Katharine Cornell's revival of "Candida" in The Sunday Times. Cornell, one of the reigning goddesses of the New York stage, and her producing partner, Gilbert Miller, had added this revival of the George Bernard Shaw play to alternate with her recently premiered production of "Antigone," which had been met with a tepid critical and audience response. Some cast members were in both plays.
Nichols wrote that the two attractions were as far apart as they could be. "Candida" was a "modern comedy" and "Antigone" was a study based on Sophoclean tragedy. Miss Cornell and Cedric Hardwicke starred in both. At the time, "Candida" was Shaw's most popular play and the part was considered one of the Cornell's best. She had played the role several times on Broadway, most recently in a special engagement in 1942 to raise money for Army and Navy charities. Nichols, agreeing with the critical consensus, wrote that the current version was not quite equal to that one. Miss Cornell's performance was equally as good, "Mr. Hardwicke caused Mr. Burgess to come to life as an amiable broad scoundrel" and Mildred Natwick, who also was in the 1942 production, "once again is the wonderful Prossy of old: she is dry, sharp and very funny." The principal problem was the two younger actors. Wesley Addy made "of Morell a more matter of fact recording than a human being" and Marlon Brando gave "a Marchbanks which is more weak than poetic, more sniveling than spirited."
The critics largely agreed that Brando, who had made his Broadway stage debut in "I Remember Mama" in 1944, was no match for Burgess Meredith, best remembered today as Rocky Balboa's trainer, who had played the role in 1942. In his autobiography, Brando, the quintessential Method actor, blamed Cornell's old-school acting approach for his failure but anybody who has ever seen Brando's Fletcher Christian in "Mutiny on the Bounty" can see that the actor had a strange approach to playing British gentlemen. In 1946 critics had their eyes on Brando, whom they had named Broadway's most promising actor for an earlier appearance in the short-lived and critically eviscerated "Truckline Cafe," in which he first gave theatergoers a look at the animal magnetism that would make him a star. His Stanley Kowalski in "Streetcar Named Desire" would come in 1947. Nichols did not mention that at 53, Cornell perhaps was getting a bit long in the tooth to be reprising a role she had first played 22 years earlier.
Nichols also wrote about the return of "Carmen Jones" to the City Center for a brief visit after its national tour. This was Oscar Hammerstein's redo of Bizet's "Carmen" set in a parachute factory with an African-American cast, With a top price of $2.40 (about $25 today), it was a "complete and great bargain." It was not unusual then for shows to cap their national tours with a brief return to Broadway. Nichols complained that too often they came back showing "the scars of travel" with the scenery in ribbons and the actors performing "weird little May dances of their personal contrivance." This was not so of "Carmen Jones," he wrote, which still had much of its original cast including Muriel Smith as Carmen, Napoleon Reed as Joe and Elton J. Warren as Cindy Lou. The rest of the cast also were familiar names including the vaudeville dance team of Buck and Bubbles as the prize fighter's manager and his stooge and jazz drummer Oliver Coleman in the role created by Cozy Cole. The show originally opened in 1943 and was in New York again for a fortnight. There were several plays with African American casts on Broadway that week, more than today.