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Show BROADWAY AND MAIN STREET Quality of Mercy Was Strained When Mantell Played 'Richard' I By BILLY ROSE A few-years back, I got the nobby notion of reviving "Henry VIII," by one W. Shakespeare, and the day after the first three-line announcement appeared on the drama pages my office was cram-jammed cram-jammed with well known actors who were willing to work for what ordinarily would have been their agents' commissions. Subsequently, for reasons that have nothing to do with this piece, I pigeon-holed my plans for doing "Henry," but I sure learned a lot about show folks during the month I was buddying up to the Bard. To nine out of ten of them, I found, the pentameters of William the lia O r A t tl A Chocolate sauce on the profherole, and during rehearsals re-hearsals they go about their business busi-ness as if they were in a temple of worship. On opening night, as far as the cast is concerned, the theater has pilly (lose , stained glass windows, and I'm not exaggerating when I say the actor ac-tor would probably kill anyone who tried to foul up the performance. perform-ance. If you think I'm using "kill" carelessly, try this one on for sighs .... BACK IN 1904, an obscure thes-pian thes-pian named Robert Mantell, who had been playing dpsultqry pne-nighters pne-nighters in the Midwest, received word that a choice Broadway theater thea-ter would be available during the Christmas season. He promptly cancelled his road engagement and brought bis troupe to New York, but shortly after his arrival he discovered dis-covered that the "choice" theater he had been offered was the Princess, Prin-cess, a small second-story auditorium audi-torium on Broadway between 27th and 28th streets. No more daunted than solvent, Mantell announced he would pre-tent pre-tent his production of "Richard III" on December i, and when friends and colleagues warned him that not a hundred people would climb a flight of rickety stairs to see a Shakespearean play during the holidays, he shrugged his threadbare shoulders and posted post-ed his rehearsal schedule. Immediately, however, there was trouble. The stage crew insisted in-sisted on a scenic rehearsal, and when the impoverished actor refused re-fused they decided to get even by lousing up his show on opening night. On the evening of the 5th, a minute after Mantell began to decibel deci-bel his way through the initial lines, a stagehand lunged at him from behind be-hind a cloth drop and almost I : knocked him into the pit. And a few moments later the same "accident" "ac-cident" happened again. When the act was over, Mantell quietly told the crew that he would kill the next man who tried to disrupt dis-rupt his performance and halfway through the second act he darned near did. In the middle of a speech, he saw the outline of a hand behind the curtain trying to locat him and, never faltering in his lines, he drew his dagger and plunged the blade full-force into the drop. When he went into the wings at the end ot the scene, one of the crew grabbed him and said, "You've killed our head carpenter." . . "I hope to Heaven I did," said Mantell. But when he examined the stagehand he found the wound was only a gash in the thigh. OOO TO MAKE SURE no one would -misunderstand how he felt, the actor ac-tor went up to his pressing room and came down wearing the iron studded glove that was part of his costume in the last act. "Any more trouble," he said, "and I shall brain each and every one of you." The stagehands looked at Mantell, Man-tell, at the mailed glove, and at the bleeding man on the floor. And from then until the final curtain, the crew was as quiet as a Scottish meeting house after a call for contributions. Nxf day, the critics bailed Mantell' s performance as "the greatest 'Richard' since the days of Booth," and before lb Wfk was out be bad been signed by the late William A. Brady, under whose management be went on to achieve recognition as on of America's leading classic actors . . Recently, Theresa Helburn of the Theatre Guild offered to let me buy a small piece of "As You Like It," starring Katharine Hepburn. "In all fairness," she said, "I think I ought to tell you that Katy's contract con-tract is only until June." "I'm not going to brood about that," I said. "The play Is by Shakespeare, and if it gets over, I doubt whether Hollywood will see her again until both she and th scenery fall apart," i |