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[[bold]]           A THEATREGOER'S NOTEBOOK
                     by Rebecca Morehouse

IN PRAISE OF ALLA [[/bold]]
From the peanut gallery of a St. Louis theatre, Tennessee Williams saw Alla Nazimova play Mrs. Alving in Ibsen's [[italics]] Ghosts [[/italics]] in 1935. "It was so moving I had to go out and walk in the lobby duriing the last act," he has said. "I'd look in, then I'd rush back to the lobby. The play was one of the things that made me want to write for the theatre."
     Nazimova, a Russian born at Yalta on the Black Sea, was strikingly theatrical. Five-foot-three, she could look taller or shorter, beautiful or plain for the stage. "As I think, so I am," she said. She had "a fascinating voice, blue-black hair, large  

[[images: a black and white photograph of Alla Nazimova next to a black and white photograph of Liv Ullmann]]
[[italics]] The legendary Nazimova(l.) played Ibsen's [[/italics]] Ghosts [[italics]] in the 30s. Liv Ullmann (r.)in a new production of [[/italics]] Ghosts [[italics]] at the Brooks Atkinson. [[/italics]]

dark eyes and white skin," wrote Ward Morehouse. She was "a genius" (Brooks Atkinson), "one of the rarest talents" (John Mason Brown).
     Schooled at Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre, she came here with a soon-impoverished troupe which acted in Russian in a Lower East Side stable. In five months she learned English; within a decade she was the leading Ibsen actress. Extolled in plays by O'Neill and Chekhov, Ibsen remained her idol. She did [[italics]] Hedda Gabler, A Doll's House, The Master Builder, The Wild Duck [[/italics]] and [[italics]] Little Eyolf. [[/italics]]
     Her exoticism noticed by Hollywood, she became a silent film star at $14,000 a week, acted with Rudolph Valentino in [[italics]] Camille. [[/italics]] The swimming pool of her sprawling Spanish villa (known later as the Garden of Allah, the famous bungalow-hotel) had the shape of the Black Sea; Tallulah swam nude in it.
     When fire threatened the house, Nazimova went from room to room looking for things to save but "found nothing I could not do without". She left, carrying some snapshots. The fire did not reach the house. "I went back, but I did not like my house so much anymore," she said years later. "Today I have not so many things and I am happier."
     Liv Ullmann, like Ibsen a Norwegian, plays Mrs. Alving in the new production of [[italics]] Ghosts, [[/italics]] scheduled for a limited engagement on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Nazimova brought the play to the Empire in 1935, and toured it; it was her last transcendant triumph. She went back to the screen but in small roles. In 1945, at 66, she died in Los Angeles.

[[bold]] PLAYWRIGHTS' WISDOM [[/bold]]
"Analysis is a great way to keep from boring your friends," Harvey Fierstein, [[italics]] Torch Song Trilogy [[/italics]]...."There is something so awfully sad about happiness," Noel Coward, [[italics]] Present Laughter [[/italics]].... "I believe in alternate last reels," John Pielmeier, [[italics]] Agnes of God [[/italics]]...."What right have we to happiness?", Ibsen, [[italics]] Ghosts. [[/italics]]

[[bold]] FAMILY FAMILY BUSINESS [[/bold]]
In Angela Lansbury's next play the role of her son will be acted by Anthony Shaw, who is her son. The play, [[italics]] A Little Family Business, [[/italics]] is a comedy by Jay Presson Allen, adapted from a 
long-running French hit by Barillet and Gredy ([[italics]] Cactus
                                         continued [[/italics]]
[[page number in bottom left corner]] 12
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