Palace Theater Review
“A Woman’s New York”
Reading Eagle – Jan. 28, 1953
By: Alice Hughes
What’s left to say in praise of Danny Kaye? Every New York critic who
saw his opening night at our historic big-time Palace vaudeville house, unreservedly
hailed this fabulous performer as a one-man cyclone. They extolled his charm, talent,
good humor, dancing, singing, clean jokes, sincerity, generosity, versatility. He
carried on for nearly two hours, clowning and ad-libbing, singing all the request
numbers. Second night is when I caught his act, and he told the packed house (in
confidence) what he thought of the first-night audience.
“They’re the
toughest of all, because they’re so anxious for the actor to make good. So many of
them are friends, relatives and persons financially interested in the show. They
sit through the performance fearful the actor will forget a line or miss a cue. They
communicate their nervousness to the stage, and it does the actor no good. Most
of the time I stand in a bright spotlight and can’t tell one person from another.
That’s fine, for if I had to work watching those anxious faces, I couldn’t take it.
Another audience reaction is their anxiety for me. I pretend to be tired and breathless.
But, believe me, no one in this audience can wear me out, because nobody likes to
hear me entertain better than me.”
Danny Kaye burlesques Spanish dancers,
German tenors, British baritones, Russian basso-profundos, ballet dancers, his own
Brooklyn-origin speech. He tells a sweet tale of his five-year-old daughter Dena’s
dislike for seeing her father’s performance, because she doesn’t like people to laugh
at her daddy.
Danny’s sense of timing is so keen, he never lingers a second
too long on anything serious or emotional. He switches from clowning to dancing into
something gay or homespun, such as noticing that his laundry always replacing missing
shirtfront buttons with much bigger ones that fail to match. He milks the audience,
making them sing quartets like a glee club; bandies words with his orchestra; ad-libs
with his pianist about his haircut, etc. And for finale, he sings song after song
from “Hans Christian Andersen.” The blurb in the Palace Theatre program
says of Kaye, “In contrast to his energetic, high-pressure performances on stage
and screen, Danny leads a quiet private life. He is married to Sylvia Fine who writes
many of his songs. He and Sylvia grew up together as kids. The day Danny opened at
the Palace was his 40th birthday.” Just when the Kaye family can manage a “quiet
private life” baffles me. Last year he played for weeks in London, New York and a
number of other cities. Also he flew to Korea and entertained before an audience
of 15,000 troops, the biggest ever assembled in that all but God-forsaken rump of
the universe. Shortly thereafter he entertained troops in Germany, Austria, France,
Italy and Africa. What’s “quiet and private” about a life like that?
Kaye
is booked for eight weeks at the Palace, but maybe it will be 16. Many New Yorkers
would gladly make his act a permanent institution. John Chapman, a drama critic who
is chary with his adjectives, wrote that he would like to propose a full four-year-term
for Kaye at the Palace. He found him the greatest entertainer he has seen in 40 years
of show-going. These are not idle words for a man who has used the word “great” but
rarely. The rave notices were extraordinary; as if he were a new sensation, seen
for the first time. Truth is, that Danny Kaye comes to New York nearly every year
and plays six or eight weeks, or as long as he can find time, without a single empty
in the house. Last year it was the Roxy, this time, the Palace. And in the London
Palladium, it’s the same. He’s a world-wide hit!